History

Joint funding efforts between the Government of the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the Government of Belize was applied to a project to upgrade the San Estevan Road. The Project comprised of the improvement of approximately 10 km of road between the Bridge 167 in Orange Walk Town and San Estevan at a cost of $8.59 million.^[1]

The road was upgraded from a gravel road with poor drainage and susceptible to flooding, to an all- weather, paved road (with double bituminous surface dressing a.k.a. chip seal), capable of sustaining anticipated traffic from heavy agricultural machinery.

Works commenced in January 2023 with programmed duration of 12 months. The civil works contractor was Teichroeb & Sons Ltd, with supervision provided by the MIDH. Near to the end of year, the contractor applied for an extension of time due to the effects of many rain events that completely saturated the native marl soils, which are notoriously slow to dry out. Works were concluded by the end of the first quarter of 2024.^[2]