With all that’s been going on, the call of Committee for Financial Supervision CFT Chairman Age Bakker for Government and businesses to focus on bettering the flagging economy (see Saturday paper) should not go unnoticed. Now that the 2016
“shotgun budget” has been passed and hopefully can meet with approval of the same CFT, St. Maarten has “turned a corner” as Bakker put it.
However, he also talked about economic stagnation for the second year in a row and called on the public and private sectors to get together and see what can be done to turn this around. One thing that certainly would help is also sticking to the philosophy behind the budget of tailoring expenditures to actual earnings, thus preventing more “de facto” deficits down the road.
There might be some doubts whether the latter indeed will prove the case during an election year and Bakker specifically mentioned putting the budget “out of the way for the election,” saying he had received a positive response during his closed-door session with Parliament’s Permanent Finance Committee. Time will tell, but the island can ill afford to put its tourism economy on the back burner until citizens have gone back to the polls.
Perhaps the relative political instability of the past years has caused some entrepreneurs to hold back on investments, but the country appears to have its financial household in order really for the first time since 10-10-10 and that ought to count for something too. Moreover, it’s still a vibrant destination that continues to reinvent itself, as shown with the recent launch of the SXMusic Festival, adding to already-well-established international events that attract lots of visitors such as Carnival and the Heineken Regatta.
People also should keep in mind that there are several major projects on line such as the Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines (RCCL) development and the one that’s supposed to replace the botched Zebec deal at the harbour, but also the Rainforest Adventures Park at Emilio Wilson Estate and others. In addition, the capital budget includes some infrastructural works and a joint Dutch-/French-side sewage plant is to be built for Cole Bay as well.
These ventures are bound to create much-needed jobs both during construction and after completion, as well as spinoff activities. So the outlook is not as glum as some might have it and “The Friendly Island” continues to offer interesting prospects.
The business community and Government need to take up the challenge jointly and rise to the occasion.
