The 2022 Atlantic hurricane season has thankfully passed without major incident, allowing for a continued recovery from the COVID-19 crisis. That has not been easy, because of – among other things – war in Eastern Europe and its impact on global prices.
Despite the latter, the Committee for Financial Supervision CFT confirmed (see Thursday edition) that St. Maarten is headed for the same budget deficit of 40 million Netherlands Antillean guilders as in pre-pandemic 2019. One must add that back then the local economy had not yet fully rebounded from the hurricane-hits of September 2017, while some coronavirus liquidity support was still received this year.
Challenges remain, like these Dutch loans starting to mature from 2023. Until now, no decision on their possible refinancing and/or cancellation has been taken.
As stated in this column before, the Kingdom Council of Ministers RMR in The Hague would do well to seriously consider such for Aruba and Curaçao too, giving the three Dutch Caribbean countries more stability and a “fighting chance” to climb out of their existing debt holes. Keep in mind that the closure of both refineries on the two other islands and sanctions against neighbouring troubled but oil-rich Venezuela contributed to their having to borrow money in no small measure.
The main emphasis at this moment in all three cases should be on boosting the tourism economy so it is able to produce enough income also for the national treasury to complete the turnaround. Locally, that means – for example – minimising the current nuisance and inconvenience for arriving visitors due to Princess Juliana International Airport (PJIA) still being in makeshift mode.
Finally getting the terminal reconstruction project going in earnest is obviously essential for the future, but right now making the best out of presently available facilities during the busy period ought to be priority as well. All stakeholders of the destination’s main gateway must be very conscious of this and do all that is – responsibly – in their power to smoothen the processing of travellers.
Equally important is ensuring an as attractive as possible Philipsburg for guests and particularly thousands of cruise passengers on a given day. Apart from badly parked vehicles, broken sidewalks, loose bricks, other rubble and trash are common ongoing problems experienced in the downtown shopping and recreation area.
Rather than looking and pointing fingers at each other, everyone involved needs to see what they themselves can do to improve these situations.
