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CDA has vetted recent Senate QC bill
The Commonwealth Development Authority said last week their recommendations to a recently passed Senate bill allowing qualifying certificates for hotel-casinos on Tinian and Rota were met.
CDA oversees the qualifying certificate program in the CNMI.
CDA executive director Manuel Sablan said they were asked to provide comment on the bill in draft form. He said these were included in the bill that was passed two weeks ago.
One comment that made it to the bill, which amends the Investment Incentive Act of 2000, is that it “only applies to a hotel-casino complex,” Sablan said.
Sablan clarified the bill would not apply to any casino activity outside that complex.
“That’s basically the thrust behind this. It’s to promote hotel-casino development,” he said.
Sablan said another comment was there to be “no retroactivity.”
“No one would be grandfathered on this arrangement going forward,” he said.
If not, he explained, the statute would apply to an investment that has already been made.
“The purpose of the QC [program] is to attract new investments,” he said, adding that their aim was to not provide a QC to an “investment that has already been deployed.”
“If this thing would help to further develop Rota and Tinian, then let’s get going. It’s basically a vehicle for them to induce investments in those areas,” he said.
Senate Bill 19-36, authored by Sen. Francisco Borja (Ind-Tinian), “removes obstacles to continued and future investment” on Rota and Tinian and amends the eligibility for qualifying certificates for casinos on the islands of Tinian and Rota to promote tourism and ongoing economic development on those islands.
