Senate president supports continued access to Chinese, Russian markets

Senate President Pete P. Reyes has expressed full support for the CNMI’s continued access to the emerging Chinese and Russian visitor markets.

In an interview with Saipan Tribune on Friday, Reyes said he is 100 percent in favor of House Speaker Arnold I. Palacios’ intention to come up with a joint House-Senate resolution regarding the visa waiver issue for the Chinese and Russian tourists.

“That’s why part of the discussions that we had when Speaker Palacios and I went to Washington D.C. was to request if the CNMI government can be allowed to participate in the crafting of the regulation on the federal immigration law,” he said.

The whole idea, the Senate president said, was to see how the CNMI would benefit from this visa waiver program.

He said one way is by recommending an exemption because the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is supposed to be taking a lead role in the implementation and enforcement of federalization of CNMI’s immigration.

“But they also have the authority to make appropriate changes whenever that is desirable to do so,” he said.

Reyes said the continued access to Chinese and Russian visitor markets is very important for the CNMI to make up for the loss in the Japanese tourists.

“In order to make up for these losses, we need to begin looking at other parts of the world that we can convince that the CNMI is a good point of destination for tourism,” he said.

Palacios earlier told Saipan Tribune that he had instructed Rep. Diego T. Benavente to look into the visa waiver issue and possibly come up with a joint resolution with the Senate, urging the Department of Homeland Security to consider the CNMI’s request for visa waiver for emerging tourism markets.

Palacios had said that after reading a recent joint report of the Marianas Integrated Immigration Task Force regarding the implementation of the CNMI-Guam visa waiver program, be believes the Legislature must come up with a unified position on the issue.

According to the Task Force’s joint report, the loss of the Chinese and Russia markets would have a significant adverse impact on the CNMI’s economy.

The report says that from 2008 to 2010, these two markets alone are projected to contribute a total of $1.01 billion in tourist spending, government revenues, and peripheral economic activities.

The CNMI began welcoming Chinese tourists in 1998, while it started catering to Russian tourists in 1996, both under the Commonwealth’s Visitor Entry Permit process.