MORE than half of the US$200 million in new foreign direct investment (FDI) for Saint Lucia over a two-year period that was projected at the inaugural Investment Forum held last May has already been realized. The island also stands to benefit immensely from a number of investment projects in the new year.
So says the Chief Executive Officer of Invest Saint Lucia, McHale Andrew, who made the disclosure last Friday during a press conference. According to him, this year’s dollar value for new FDI also surpasses the past three year’s average.
“We are able to confirm a total of about US$120 million having been invested in this country under foreign direct investment (FDI) so far this year,” Andrew said Friday. “The average over the last three years is about US$113 million. They are not ‘sexy investments’ because they’re not big, major projects. But we do have a number of companies in tourism in the technology sector that have expanded and they have brought in capital expenditure (which) is what investment is about because it’s coming out from a different financial system into our financial system.”
Despite making such gains in a volatile global investment climate, Andrew said the new investments Saint Lucia was able to attract did not have the magnitude of economic impact that local officials had hoped for. He added that since the entire global economy is virtually competing for the same investment dollars, Saint Lucia needs to distinguish itself in order to attract the right quantum of major investments that can make a meaningful impact in creating a strong investment climate and creating a dent in the unemployment levels.
Andrew said that while many investors are interested in Saint Lucia as a potential destination for setting up shop, they invariably have qualms about the island. For instance, the number of derelict vehicles abandoned on roads and streets, the high cost of doing business and the indiscriminate disposal of garbage, are among the red flags raised by potential investors. All things considered, however, he points to a positive period for 2015.
“We’re very bullish on next year because we have at least six major projects (in the pipeline),” Andrew said. “Three of them are in the preparatory stages, while for the other three we are still at the idea stage and have met many times with the investors. Some of them are non-traditional. Two of the projects that we’re working on are in the medical field: medical research which might turn into medical tourism.”
Andrew said his office was working with the local private sector on connecting with the two above-mentioned proposals. On the tourism side, he said negotiations are ongoing on three major investments – included the stalled Le Paradis property development project – which should realize some positive results in the new year.
Andrew said Saint Lucia’s planning strategies have to be adjusted and restructured following the drying up of foreign aid, loss of preferential treatment on exports and Saint Lucia now having to pay market-based rates on loans. He said the island now has to earn its own way to prosperity and not depending solely on handouts. While the adjustments will prove traumatic and challenging, the end-results can prove to be both positive and beneficial. If only a new collective thinking is adopted, he said, the years ahead can be nothing less than prosperous.
“We are virtually at the crossroads. As an economist, I can tell you that it really requires a quantum leap in our thinking, in our focus and in our intervention through the kind of work that needs to be done. The fact is that we need to corral our forces – intellectual, economic and financial – and try to meet that proposition,” Andrew said.
Such HOG F… G WASH
All this hot air about FDI, and so little of it has crossed boarders into the domestic financial system? My God!
It is a tad disingenuous to talk about “potential” as being a reality. Some people have a tendency to firmly believe as reality even their own most obvious disinformation! Did somebody say lies?
Technically speaking, experts describe FDI in terms of stocks and flows: What is there on the ground for some time as the stock, and what will have arrived over a period of 12 months, as the flow.
Come out with it. Stop the darn obfuscation! Which is it? Have any of these $120 million been transferred to, or injected into the domestic economy? If any, how much?
And does it not bear ample testimony to attempted obfuscation, that the rosy picture of $120 million has no identifiable projects associated with that, and more significantly, those $120 million have NOT HAD ANY SIGNIFICANT IMPACT ON THE DOMESTIC ECONOMY? Hmmm! That says a lot.
Who is trying to fool whom here? Even Ti A-B-C pachay cwabb little children know that “Nothing from nothing leaves nothing!”
Hey! It is Christmas time; “A little child shall lead them”.
More ‘ bullshit baffles’ brains rhetoric that I have heard over and over again from these SLP Administrations.
The fact that the 6 projects cannot be mentioned by name is the first red flag that MAYBE one of them will be realized! Forget the $120 million quoted in the press the odds are that it will be minimal.
Even if the projects were mentioned we know the ‘blah blah blah’ of Kenny Anthony and his acolytes. Remember the billion dollars of investment at the hight of the real estate bubble. Look what we ended up with. Le paradis, Black Bay and endless other projects never finished or started.
These SLP Administrations have a formula. They shout to the world and the low information voter of St. Lucia – $X to be invested. Y employees by year 20XX or 20XX. Invariable the investment does not pan out and if it does you never see the real level of employment creation mentioned.
The reality is that this is a liberal/socialist government which typically is only good at talk, take and travel. They are mismanagers with no clue how to revitalize a government. Their real agenda as we know is ‘jobs for the boyz’ and their pay and pensions and perks.
I also note as I said a few years back that this PetroCaribe was a noose around the necks of Caribbean people. so said so done. Now St. Vincent like the other liberal spendthrift governments around the region is bleating about how much they owe the bankrupt Venezuela. $141 million !!!!
As I said then. How can you borrow money to put gas in your tank? That is like going to the bank to borrow to put food on the table. It is a formula for disaster!
Get real St. Lucia. This government has proven since 1997 to have NO FORMULA FOR RUNNING A COUNTRY. Even at the hight of the economic boom they were still increasing debt and put nothing aside for investment or as savings.
Kenny Anthony is a political hack who never had a real job in his life but has only depended on the taxes and borrowing of the people of St. Lucia and the Caribbean to become a millionaire and get all his pensions. That has been the agenda all along!
” For instance, the number of derelict vehicles abandoned on roads and streets….”
————————————————————————————————————————————————————–
Tourism has been our number one industry for some time now; yet, if one were to take a leisurely stroll around town, he or she would encounter many poorly maintained, dilapidated sidewalks in many areas (even around Parliament) that are unsuitabe for walking,, without twisting ones ankle, let alone wheelchair accessible for the handicapped tourist or St.Lucian alike. He or she would encounter poorly paved streets with wide open gutters with standstill waters and garbage.
No wonder many of the cruise ship passengers opt for destinations ouside of the city or just spend the day gazing down at the city from the deck of the ships.
Those who come to our shores by way of our International airport in the south of the island and must travel north to their respective destinations are subject to even more unpleasant eyesores along the long windy and curvy East-Coast Highway; for eight out of ten talk about it on TripAdvisor.
And what do we do? NOTHING. Instead, every three months or so, our tourism officials run to the media to boast about how great we are doing, and how our numbers are up over the same period of a year ago.
The truth is, with the Pitons, the number one tourist attraction in the Caribbean, we could be doing a lot better; but first, we have to be willing to get off our butts, roll up our sleeves, and start cleaning up and beautifying the island, especially along our major road-ways. And now, with falling gas prices, we can easily implement a 5 cent, a 2 cent, or a 3 cent per gallon gas tax, place it in a Highway Beautification Fund; and use it exclusively for cleaning up and beautifying our roadways and our city.
Without a salary, and for love of country, I would be more than happy and willing to be a part of this Beautification Project.
Quote Tom, “And now, with falling gas prices, we can easily implement a 5 cent, a 2 cent, or a 3 cent per gallon gas tax,”
There must be some plague of schizophrenia on this island, or this is a case of Multiple Personality Disorder, or many individuals going by the pseudonym of Tom-Tom.
Certainly this could not be my Good Christian brother being so duplicitous ? One day expressing total condemnation of the oppressive tax system, and condemning the monies spent to improve the roads and infrastructure of the island as in the case of the Bois D’Orange Bridge, and the next day, this mentally deranged phantom becomes an advocate for a TAX INCREASE that would be Nationally regressive, while advocating for improvements of roads and bridges ? WTH.
I have long argued that the subscription by Black people to the concept that God became a naked white man who killed himself to save the African, paralyzes the ability of the Negro to be consistently logical. These victims like the one who changed his slave name from Leary Carasco to a better slave-name of Jon Wayne, and the self-hating Negro Josie, who thinks that dark chocolate skinned Africans should not be allowed to be Carnival Queen Contestants, (these shameless Negroes) should be relegated to the dustbins of ancient relics because of their continued worship of a naked white man as their god and their praying to dead people and Too-lu-luus at Choc – a religion given to these slaves by the Slave Masters.
Yesterday, “too much Taxes I can’t buy medication for my schizophrenia” ? Today, “we need more Taxes – words of the Schizophrenic Tom-Tom
So what do you do; sit at your computer all day and wait for Tom-Tom to post something so you can jump all over him? Don’t you have a girlfriend or a wife to keep you occupied? Don’t you play sports? Don’t you go for drives or walks? Right now, most Muslims are heading to Mecca to see or touch the Kaaba; why don’t you jump on your camel and head there too?
You are miserable and starting to sound like a broken vinyl record, stuck in a grove, repeating the same thing over and over and over: Slave master; chocolate skinned Africans; blue eye God; naked white man; Rick Waye; Allen Chastanet; etc., etc. I’m starting to think that you are suffering from a very serious mental condition; and Tom-Tom, somehow, is responsible for it; for you attack no other blogger.
For one minute, try to take off your Muslim cap; and put on the cap of a reasonable man; if gas prices are about $16 per gallon, and they are about to be dropped to $15.50 per gallon; what’s wrong in dropping them to $15.55 with the extra 5 cents going into a Fund for the beautification of our highways as we are a tourist destination? How is that a regressive tax? It’s like killing two birds with one stone. Most drivers would be happy with the price reduction; and tourists would be happy with the enhanced beauty and cleanliness along our roadways. It’s a win win situation. But then again, Muhammad’s religion has fogged your reasoning.
Tom:
Being honest with one’s self is the key to salvation. Let me remind you of your argument last week, and I quote you here,
“Does he really think that that poor little old lady from Dennery who is forced to pay VAT on her medications, and has very little use of the Bois d’ Orange bridge, will forget the pain that he and the SLP has inflicted on her?”
Today however, you propose a TAX INCREASE that would not only affect the price of transportation, but would increase the prices of all things requiring transportation; including the price of medication. My rejection of your proposed tax-increase states, the people of this island can use all relief from the high prices of goods, and if lower oil prices offers such relief, then it should be utilized towards that end.
I find your arguments sometimes possessing credibility, but this TAX-INCREASE proposed by you, dropping the price of petroleum to 15.50 and then increasing it to 15.55 is a TAX INCREMENT OF ONE PERCENT which will ripple through every aspect of the whole economy, including VAT, is incredulous.
You are now sounding like the idiot who operates the UWP plantation, Allen Chastanet who tells Lucians that the American Civil War was fought with England over taxes. I hope you are not intimated by Chastanet’s God-Like complexion and you have instructed him not to go around making such preposterous statements. Take a look at your leader, talking kaka. chien in the video below. You might get over with this double talk with the idiot bloggers who find sustenance from the ninny on steroids but let me caution you, people like JOE, and Charlie Angels and Dr. OPTICAL in this venue will certainly render your effort mute – lol.
I am really enjoying the new format introduced by the Voice in its blogs, where it is easy to see the inconsistencies in the speech of the illogical non-thinking bloggers saying DECREASE one week = INCREASE the next week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBM0gMRWgsE
*
*
Tom
There are mobil devices known as Iphones. I am miles from home visiting some Muslims and christians. Anyway don’t prove my assessment of your mental ailment correct by being naccisstic. It was simply your erratic double talk that required being exposed and packaged with the other non thinking slaves of white man worship.
Rabboni Ministries Pastor Lesego Daniel – Mass Prayer Botswana Crusade Cures men and women of Cancer, Ebola, Evil-spirits, and all diseases in the Name of the White Jesus – I will leave Islam and join this Powerful Christian prophet to cure me from having sex and make me a celibate priest..
*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZPJlmcs9Sg
*
T.B. Joshua Teaching Pastors About DELIVERANCE! Delivers Guy Joseph and Allen from Evil Spirits in the Castries River:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yJ2KOYanuY
*
*
Andrew, we need to discipline our thinking, our definition, our actions. until such time, you keep milking the system…..
@Son-of-man “That’s the reason I enjoy reading your opinions in these blog. Who can rebuttal such poignant and deliberate argument so magnificently presented by you?”
It was a Full-Moon when you made that observation.
@Son-of-man “It saddens me that your mother is undergoing such trials in her health, and again I must agree with you that the imposition of VAT upon medicines is unconscionable, and should be repealed forthwith; this is the meaning of oppression.”
It was the Third Quarter when you made that observation.
@Son-of-man “… words of the Schizophrenic Tom-Tom”
It was a New-Moon when you made that observation.
@Son-of-man “… don’t prove my assessment of your mental ailment correct by being naccisstic.”
It was the First Quarter when you made that observation.
———————————————————————————————————-
When your logic, reasoning, and emotions are dictated by the phases of the moon, you are what they call a LUNATIC.
TOM:
You’re funny! I am happy you haven’t started breaking things, lol. There is nothing inconsistent or contradictory in my condemnation of VAT as an oppressive tax while declaring your proposal of a tax increment of one percent as double-talk, and a detriment to an already burdened population. No Lunacy at all ! BUT THIS IS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJXcQ_qUcD4
*
*
On Le paradis – that land was left for nature and the fat buffoon overrode the legacy so that he could put a hotel on it. That hotel was never completed and is a total eyesore. It’s no longer in a fit state to be salvaged, so the best course is to knock it all down and restore it to its original and intended state when it was left to the nation. Why do governments not follow the rule of law? Fat ken speaks with fork tongue.
There’s a million reasons why foreigners don’t want to invest, and rubbish is only one of them. Others are the abysmal crime rate, a slack and unproductive workforce, a sclerotic civil service and poor governance (see le paradis, grynberg, rochamel)
There are too many hotels on the island. Level 1 economics says dont increase the supply if demand isn’t there – you will just cannibalise the existing stock.
“…dropping the price of petroleum to 15.50 and then increasing it to 15.55 is a TAX INCREMENT OF ONE PERCENT”
—————————————————————————————————–
Oh My God, Son-of-man does not know 3rd grade math. You were in such a hurry, as usual, to misrepresent what I said that you have now succeeded, beyond my wildest imagination, in making a complete fool of yourself. It was my 4 year old who pointed out your math fiasco. Hey! stick to English; and please don’t venture into the unfamiliar territory of MATH. LOL.
Now, take out your calculator (and please don’t use your fingers to do math again); and try to get it right this time. If you need help, call my 4 year old @ 123-456-7890.
TOM-TOM:
See Tom the Absolute Value of a negative five and a positive five is 10. now you do the math and let’s stick to integers..
Hidding behind Absolute Values and Integers will not save you from this debacle; so, take it like a man.
If gasoline is selling @ $15.50 a gallon, and there’s a 1 % increase, the new price will be $15.65 a gallon. This is 3rd gade math son-of-man. Shame on you.
Tom-Tom;
This is what Absolute Values means: starting at a point zero, you decrease/go negative from $15.55 to $15.50 that is a – 5(negative five). Now you propose instead of reducing the price, increase it by + 5(positive 5). From – 5, – 4, – 3, – 2, – 1, 0 + 1, + 2, + 3, + 4, + 5, has an absolute value of 10. 10/1550 x 100 when rounded out equals 1 %. So there’s Tom’s advocacy for a TAX INCREASE OF ONE PERCENT on all goods distributed on the island. I could have given you some fraction of one percent, but Farthings aren’t minted anymore to the best of my knowledge. Therefore I plead with you to show some consistency by not condemning the VAT and the building of bridges one week, then do a reversal by advocating for a Tax increment to build roads and bridges the next week. That is not asking too much of you Tom ? yet again, you think Allen Chastanet is the best man to lead Lucians over the Soufriere bridge.
Why can’t you just admit that you’re wrong? +5 and -5 is zero; they cancel each other out.
If someone gives you $5 to put in your wallet; then you spend that same $5 on bread; how can you then have $10 in your wallet? Son-of-man, stop using FUZZY MATH.
Get back to what you are good at: English; and stay away from math.
Tom:
I am attempting to make you understand the mathematical concepts of Absolute Values, it’s not fuzzy math, Pre-Calculus maybe. So I found some information that may help you comprehend some of the symbols and ideas of Absolute Values in math.
In mathematics, the absolute value (or modulus) |x| of a real number x is the non-negative value of x without regard to its sign. Namely, |x| = x for a positive x, |x| = −x for a negative x (in which case −x is positive), and |0| = 0. For example, the absolute value of 3 is 3, and the absolute value of −3 is also 3. The absolute value of a number may be thought of as its distance from zero.
Generalisations of the absolute value for real numbers occur in a wide variety of mathematical settings. For example an absolute value is also defined for the complex numbers, the quaternions, ordered rings, fields and vector spaces. The absolute value is closely related to the notions of magnitude, distance, and norm in various mathematical and physical contexts.
I will not charge you for this “Lessons”. But tutoring such mathematical concepts are not cheap – anyway just drop a case of Piton for me by the wall opposite the Cathedral on ‘Asue Square’, then we could knockout some swine, and “Boo-den” at Andre’s restaurant by the square then we’re even.
“… just drop a case of Piton for me by the wall opposite the Cathedral on ‘Asue Square’, then we could knockout some swine, and “Boo-den” at Andre’s restaurant by the square then we’re even’.
———————————————————————————————–
Hey dude, I have a reputation to uphold; I wouldn’ be caught around town eating or drinking with you. lol.
I don’t live in St.Lucia; I live in Bergen County; I’ve been in North America since 1977. By the way, your math is still wrong.
Absolute value speaks to the magnitude of the change without paying attention to whether or not you have a positive or negative sign, or value related the number in question.
15 – 5 = Absolute value 10 (with minus 5)
5 – 15 = Absolute value 10 (with minus 15)
Summation or adding these two results would give us Absolute 20
Let’s look at change in real life:
If the original price was $15.50 and that price was increased, but with the final price at $15.55,
then the percentage change is given as:
(15.55 – 15.50)/15.50 = .0032 or 0.32% and not 1 percent rounded (0.32 is less than 0.5)
Now look at how this absolute value thing works with the Black Bay Lands GOS Investment Fiasco:
If the appraised, or fair market value (FMV) of the lands “contributed” to that “joint venture” investment (if you can call it that) by the GOS was $86 million, then you would have to place a “+” sign in front of that$86 million, i.e., +ve $86
When in fact the GOS lost its shirt in that stupid deal, the net result was that Saint Lucia’s equity tanked from POSITIVE $86 million to ZERO (dollars).
Now it has been said that if Saint Lucia (the GOS that is) wants its land back, it will have to fork out at least another $86 million.
In dollar flows or terms that would be recorded as a NEGATIVE $86 million ( -ve $86 million)).
That would mean that our asset worth would be restored to where we were BEFORE that “investment” transaction (of course transaction costs are not taken into consideration). We will have achieved a return to the status quo.
But looking at the ENTIRE THING, IN TERMS OF ABSOLUTE VALUE, we see a different picture. We moved from the Black Bay Lands “idle capital” valued at +$86 million. We forfeited or lost that to bring us down to $0.00. Then we will have expended (a negative flow) -ve $86 million (another $86 million) to buy back the lost property to return us to the status quo ante.
Ask yourself this: How much IN TOTALITY … will Saint Lucia have LOST or … it will have COST us in restoring the situation to the status quo that existed before?
Answer: It would be first of all the +ve $86 million (the original cost of the idle land —- as an outright sale) plus the additional —- this time a -ve $86 million (outflow) to buy it back, for a total of an absolute $ 172.00 million dollars. Between the sellers and buyers $172 million in total value changed hands! (Saint Lucia or the GOSL “transferred ownership and title” for a stake in the joint venture.
If we have since bought those lands back, it will have, in effect, cost us $172 million dollars to “make us whole”. As business economists would say, there may been since then, some opportunity cost involved there too.
@TECHIE “If the original price was $15.50 and that price was increased, but with the final price at $15.55,
then the percentage change is given as:
(15.55 – 15.50)/15.50 = .0032 or 0.32% and not 1 percent rounded (0.32 is less than 0.5)”
————————————————————————————————————
Thanks TECHIE, I hope Son-of-man still turns on his computer.
The statement was, instead of reducing the price to 15.50 (from 15.55), increase it by 5 cents. From neg 5 to a pos 5 has an absolute value of 10. From – 5, – 4, – 3, – 2, – 1, 0, + 1, + 2, + 3, + 4, + 5, —– | – 5| = 5, | 5 | = 5 —- | – 5 | + | 5 | = 10. 10/1555 X 100 = 0.643 = 1 % (rounded to the whole number). Now that you understand the idea of Absolute value, it is rewarding to know my brother Tom will not go around saying that the absolute value of neg. 5 and pos. 5 is zero if one buys a loaf of bread for $ 5. lol
.
Is this the new mathematics? Is this person a candidate for a Nobel Prize in mathematics?
JESUS CHRIST FALLS AND BREAKS HIS NECK BUT DOESN’T DIE
*
*
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152668523619669&set=vb.191900549668&type=2&theater
*
*
Andrew said that while many investors are interested in Saint Lucia as a potential destination for setting up shop, they invariably have qualms about the island. For instance, the number of derelict vehicles abandoned on roads and streets, the high cost of doing business and the indiscriminate disposal of garbage, are among the red flags raised by potential investors. All things considered, however, he points to a positive period for 2015.
**********************
How about labor force who cannot speak or write English well, who cannot work effectively, who must miss days at work because members of their extended family have heart attacks, many births, many funerals, many this, many that?
How about the many investors who closed down their business and left the island in disgust? Their horror stories are echoing through the years to reach us (and prospective investors) today …
Helen of the West, wake up and get real. It’s tough competition out there beyond the horizon. You cannot sleep forever.
@ TOM TOM TOM. You are right. I lived for 12 years in St. Lucia. the working attitude is quite bad. Investing in St. lucia? No way. Prices for food are super high. roads are full of pot holes.