Curacao Investment Opportunities
Curaçao’s Investment Climate
Since Curaçao is in a relatively early stage of aggressively promoting its international development, many opportunities exist for investors and entrepreneurs and these opportunities should only increase in the coming years. Many of these opportunities will arise from successful tourism promotion.
Other opportunities will arise as a result of continued privatization. Most of the opportunities, however, will be created from the vision of entrepreneurs and the synergies created by the cluster strategy. The greatest growth is expected to be in those sectors that leverage Curaçao’s comparative advantages and focus on high value-added services catering to an international market.
Education
Business Training
Financial Services
Sophisticated Niche Tourism
Culture, Arts and Entertainment
Transportation and Logistics
IT/Ecommerce
Residential, Commercial and Retail
Tourism will drive the economic growth
Tourism, in particular, is poised to grow exponentially as the professional and systematic promotional campaign of the Curaçao Tourism Board begins to gain traction in the North American market. Curaçao’s tourism budget for marketing and promoting the destination in North American and European markets has increased substantially, thanks to project assistance from the Dutch government. Last year, traffic from North America grew by 8% in six of the eight months from January through August. As tourism demand increases, the opportunities to develop hotels and recreation facilities abound and Curaçao has a great deal of unexploited real estate.
Curaçao has long been a favorite destination for Europeans, South Americans, and many Caribbean residents, the focus now is attracting visitors from the U.S. and Canada. Curaçao averages 220,000 stay over visitors a year and 300,000 cruise passengers. According to the Curaçao Tourism Board, Curaçao is not promoting itself as a mass market, rather, the i mm ediate goal is to double the 40,000 North American visitors to 80,000 a year by tapping into niche markets such as Jewish heritage and gay travel”. The general lack of awareness of Curaçao in the North American market is slowing giving way to growing recognition. More importantly a new immigration card asks departing visitors to comment about their stay in Curaçao; since September 2003, 10,000 visitors have filled out the card, and 97% said they would recommend Curaçao to others.
Curaçao’s Investment Climate is Favorable
Curaçao offers investors a relatively safe and positive environment in which to do business:
a stable political environment and long democratic tradition whose integrity is guaranteed by our membership of the Kingdom of the Netherlands,
a brand-new civil code that has done away with many of the awkward differences between our original Continental code and the Anglo-Saxon code, and have made our system and that of Great Britain and the U.S. more comparable and more compatible,
A modern financial and business services infrastructure including local offices and representations of most major banks, accounting firms, law offices and consultancies,
An expanding tourism infrastructure, featuring the likes of Hilton and Marriott, with Hyatt working to build a resort and golf course on the eastern side of the island targeted at the upscale tourist market,
The second biggest seaport in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, after Rotterdam, and definitely one of the two or three most modern and efficient ports in the wider Caribbean, featuring among others the best mooring facility for latest generation mega cruise ships,
an airport in the process being modernized into one of the very best and safest by 2006,
Historic Willemstad, one of UNESCO’s 80-something World Heritage sites, the delight of all visitors
Traditionally low inflation, always under five percent per year.
Water polo men grab silver
TRINIDAD and Tobago’s Under-20 water polo team won their semi-final match against Curacao 7 to 4 on Thursday night at the Caribbean Islands Swimming Championships in Puerto Rico.
The home team Puerto Rico also won their “semi†against Dominican Republic 17 to 8.
This set the stage for a showdown against Trinidad and Tobago the following day.
The fight for the top spot in Caribbean water polo honours started Friday at 5.15 pm and took place at the Olympica de Caguas.
The match was fought aggressively by both teams with the Puerto Ricans emerging victorious in the end.
Trinidad and Tobago played the majority of the final without two of their regular starters — Marc Stamper and Mattheaus Otero who were nursing injuries sustained during the five-day tournament.
The Puerto Ricans started off the scoring and led 6- 2 at the half. But the TT water polo men returned fire scoring six goals of their own.
But it was not enough to stop the home team and they lost 10-6.
The national Under-20 team returned home yesterday with a hard fought silver medal.
Cementing a top spot for Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean were Troy Gordon, Stuart Gillette, Christian Flook, Stephen Espinet, Ian Welch-Phillips, Delano Othero, Mattheaus Othero, Matthew Abraham, Marc Stampfli, Jean Philippe Francis, Jason Rodriguez and Gregory Joseph (goalie).
The team was coached by James Robertson.
WATER POLO RESULTS
Monday June 26: BAR (6) vs TRI (11); AHO (9) vs DR (6);
TRI (5) vs PR (8); AHO (7) vs BAR (5)
Tuesday June 27: DR (7) vs TRI (7); BAR (5) vs PR (19) Wednesday June 28: PR (7) vs AHO (4); DR (13) vs BAR (11);
TRI ( 6) vs AHO (4); PUR (11) vs DR (4)
Thursday June 29: Semi-final — AHO (4) vs TRI (7); PR (15) vs DOM (7)
Friday June 30: Finals — AHO (5) vs DR (4); PR (10) vs TRI (6)