By Colin Heartwell, CEO TCInvest
TCInvest endeavors to attract significant offshore investment funds to the Islands in order to create the major economic and employment generators that will drive future economic growth, while providing domestic investment capital and advisory support to local entrepreneurs wishing to invest in new business opportunities. A comprehensive investment policy provides a clear set of commitments by the Government on their investment approach which includes a streamlined business licensing system, a responsive immigration policy to give investment security, access to government owned land under long term leases and a variety of duty concessions to reduce the costs of starting a new venture in the country. These policies are published in "Doing Business in the Turks & Caicos Islands". To further support new investment the TCI Government recently initiated a program to assist the lesser developed islands in the country. Individuals or firms wishing to invest in any of these islands will find that the land transfer has been reduced from 9.75% to 3% or less. The minimum investment to become eligible to apply for a Permanent Residency Certificate has been reduced to US$125,000 in most cases and to as low as US$50,000 should an investor wish to purchase shares in a new regional air service called Sovereign Air. Of further benefit to investors in TCI's privileged access to the European Economic Union through the Lome Convention and preferred access to Canada and the US through CARIBCAN and CARICOM. TCI's US dollar currency which allows unencumbered repatriation of profits is also an incentive.
TCI's economic growth has been amongst the fastest in the Caribbean while maintaining a reputation for a pristine natural environment. The past eighteen months have seen enormous interest in TCI, the following are a few of the new developments of note.
The Zeta Group, is expected to start construction on a major resort complex on the private island of Dellis Cay, while Caicos Holdings Ltd. is anticipating the opening of a five star boutique resort on nearby Parrot Cay before Christmas 1997. Dominion Bridge, a major Canadian construction firm is developing a fifty room dive resort in Grand Turk, with construction slated to begin in late 1996 and the hotel scheduled to be open in early 1998. In Providenciales, major investor groups have agreed to construct three new resort complexes over the next three years, with the first project recently having broken ground. Sandals International acquired the Royal Bay Resort in mid 1996 from Zurich-Canada, and this acquisition is raising the awareness of the nation's enormous tourism potential which will be further enhanced by the other recent developments on Providenciales, Dellis Cay, Parrot Cay and Grand Turk. In total, the TCI Government has reached agreement for an estimated US$250 million worht of new resort construction.
For the past year and a half, Pagebrook (TCI) Ltd. had been conducting a multi-million dollar investigation into the feasibility of constructing a major cruise port on East Caicos. These studies are expected to be finalized prior to the end of the year and if successful, would initiate development of a US$300 million cruise destination.
Further investments to the Islands have included a brewery, marina, aircraft parts manufacturing facility, hydrophonic garden, regional airline service, tilapia fish farm and expansion of the world's only commercial conch farm. These projects are expected to generate US$7.5 million in new construction, create a broad variety of skilled jobs and help to diversify the economic base of the country. There is interest in a broad variety of other projects including brine shrimp farms and salt production.
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8 August 1997