Previous Story
BGRT revenue up by $3.6M in FY05
|
Posted on Nov 16 2005
The Department of Finance said it collected a total of $58 million in business gross sales tax in fiscal year 2005, which is $3.6 million higher than in FY 2004.
“Despite the economic difficulties, our collection is actually up,” said Finance Secretary Fermin M. Atalig yesterday.
He agreed, though, that business sales would be down as a result of the Japanese Airlines pullout last month.
“The JAL [pullout’s] impact on BGRT will not be known until January 2006. That’s when we get the quarterly payment. So whatever decline is being felt right now, we’d know the actual impact next year,” he said.
In a separate interview, outgoing Saipan Chamber of Commerce president Alex Sablan said that business sales are estimated to be down by 28 percent beginning October 2005 due to the JAL departure.
“We believe that it’s down 20 or close to 30 percent today. It’s probably 28 percent. This is based on conversations we had with major operators of goods and services on the island,” said Sablan.
JAL, which used to fly directly from Osaka and Tokyo daily, brought in about 150,000 passengers a year to the CNMI. The Osaka daily flights have been replaced since last month by Northwest Airline. The Tokyo route, however, could not be replaced by other airlines as JAL has refused to let go of its slot at the Narita International Airport.
In 2004, the CNMI received 382,000 tourists from Japan, most of them originating from the Narita airport.
In fiscal year 2005 ending last September, Japanese tourists in the CNMI totaled 376,263.
Overall, the CNMI received 529,557 tourists in FY 2005.
Meantime, Sablan said that businesses raised their costs from 10 to 15 percent across the board “to combat the increase in costs of doing business in the CNMI.”
“Even with the increase in cost of business, taking 10 to 15 percent additional costs on goods and services, we are still down 20 to 30 percent and it would definitely correlate and translate to the number in the budget opportunities for the government,” said the Chamber official.
