Chamber President Urges Gov’t To “Close The Deal” On Investment Projects:
By Juan McCartney -
Nassau, Bahamas:


The government needs to take swift action in order to assure local businessmen that the impact of the current economic downturn will be minimal, according to President of the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce, Dionisio D’Aguilar.

"Clearly the statistics show that the economy is indeed slowing down. The Central Bank is saying it; the Minister of State for Finance Zhivargo Liang is not denying it. I just think that we could do something to prevent its slowdown being as significant as it is," he said.

Mr. D’Aguilar urged the government to "close the deal" on some major developments slated for New Providence.

"The two projects that jump to mind that are on the back burner right now are the Albany project in southwest New Providence, and more importantly the Baha Mar project (set for the Cable Beach Strip). If we could get them going – now – we could soften the downturn that’s coming, and there’s no doubt that it’s coming," he said.

"It would be a significant boost of confidence in the local economy if we could have a handshake, a sealing of a major deal and we could see our way forward for the substantial investment those huge projects would entail."

Mr. D’Aguilar pointed to the hit the United States’ economy has taken due to the recent "sub-prime fiasco".

He also pointed to the implementation of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI), which requires all American citizens to have a passport in order to reenter the United States from The Bahamas and other Caribbean countries when traveling by air, as indicators that The Bahamas needs to take measures to prevent a significant falloff in employment and revenue in the tourism sector.

"[It] is a major problem in the sense that now Americans can go anywhere. Before they didn’t need a passport to go to certain countries of which The Bahamas was one. Now that they’re all getting passports they can go to a whole host of other countries that they may have not even considered before," he said.

"So we need to act urgently. In my opinion we need to get one of those projects going."

Mr. D’Aguilar said while he does not have any concrete statistics, he has heard that unemployment levels have recently risen.

"That is why we need say, a Baha Mar, requiring a large amount of construction jobs on the outset and then employ a significant number of Bahamians once its up and running. I think that if you waste too much time trying to seal the best deal, by the time you seal the best deal, the people who are interested in making this $2 billion investment, might change their minds. The dynamics are changing in the U.S. economy, and what might have seemed attractive two years ago, might not seem attractive today," he said.

"For all the reasons we’ve mentioned that contribute to the downturn in the economy, people start to get jitters and say ‘I’m just not interested in this anymore’."

Mr. D’Aguilar said he believes the government is close to closing the deals with the developers of the Albany and Baha Mar, but it needs to operate with "a little sense of urgency".

"Let’s go now, you’ve been in office since May; let’s get a deal sealed. Let’s do what we need to do to get a deal sealed. And I think the local businessmen are anxious for a sign [to say] ‘okay the world might be in a bit of a crisis, but in our little bubble here in The Bahamas we’ve got some significant projects here that are going to cushion us through this potential downturn’," Mr. D’Aguilar said.

"I think that’s its important for the chamber to keep the pressure on the government and to make this a priority to make sure the deals on the table are signed."

19 November 2007