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CDA celebrates 30th anniversary
The Commonwealth Development Authority is celebrating its 30th anniversary this month and has set a series of open house and stakeholder meetings and workshops this March.
Gov. Ralph DLG Torres, before a crowd of CDA officials, signed a proclamation Tuesday to the commemorating the anniversary this month.
CDA officials present on Tuesday spoke of the “momentum” its small business loan program under the U.S. Department of Treasury was getting, crossing the threshold of disbursement needed to get the next $4 million tranche of Treasury funds.
“[SSBCI] has been an eye opener for us,” said CDA executive director Manuel Sablan. “In the beginning none of the banks were willing to move in,” he said, adding that the program was bank-driven.
CDA officials continued to thank participating banks, Bank of Guam and City Trust Bank, on Tuesday, for their participation.
Sablan said the program has seen new or sustained employment generated “from every loan” the program approves. “We are setting up a track record on this,” he added.
Torres, for his part, said CDA is one agency that often gets “overlooked. “Nobody likes paperwork,” Torres said but added there are “folks out there with business ideas that need to pushed.”
CDA, established by public law in 1985, is agency tasked with providing financial and technical assistance to facilitate start-up or private and public enterprise in the CNMI.
The agency also supports and participates in the Junior Achievement program, which is in its fourth cycle this year, and sees students from competing high schools develop business models and products to sell and advertise.
CDA will hold open houses on Mondays throughout the month of March; conduct stakeholder’s meeting on March 8 on Tinian, March 10 on Saipan, and March 16 on Rota.
On March 22 and 23, CDA will sponsor a two-day profit mastery workshop with the Saipan Chamber of Commerce.
