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NCL’s ECP Is Complete. Next!
Wed, April 16, 2014
Exactly a week ago, Norwegian Cruise Line's executives hosted a media tour on their luxurious cruise Ship, the Norwegian Jewel. It was to try to change the perception that cruise tourists aren't cheapos, and to show the Belizean public what their operation looks like behind the curtains.

On that excursion, 7News spoke with Colin Murphy, the Vice President, of the cruise company's Destination & Strategic Development, and he said basically that despite the resistance being mounted by the opponents Harvest Caye project, "it is going to happen."

That's exactly the sentiment we got today when we spoke with Michael Singh, the CEO of the Ministry of Trade, who was present at the very initial stages of this project, when it first emerged.

Here's how he explained it:

Mike Singh - CEO, Ministry of Trade
"As of today the ECP has been completed by the Department of the Environment. NEAC has approved the project and the next phase as you rightly said is for us to enter into definitive agreement. We have been working on the terms of that agreement which will follow pretty much the terms of the MOU which has already been released. Once that definitive agreement has been done, at that point then the project really has the green light to move ahead."

"In my discussions with Mr. Murphy, he has indicated to me that they are ready today to start working and to start construction. Now that's a very important thing for us to know because it means that they may be ready for actual deployment of ships in the upcoming season which could be as early as October 2015 and that's what they are aiming for - to be in 2015/16 season. Now that takes a lot of work to get there because it's a lot of construction that has to happen. We have to prepare a lot of people. The small business center has actually been working in Placencia putting out workshops trying to help some of these small businesses to get ready for that investment so that they can form a part of the ecosystem that will support the activities of that cruise project."

"We are also pleased to note that they've also started a hiring program. We have gotten word of over 300 - 400 people that have been interviewed, job offers have been given to a couple hundred of them, I don't have the exact number. Unfortunately we are finding that not all of them can afford to pay the initial fees for them to take on because they have to do health checks - things that we do not major in the big picture, but for somebody who is unemployed that a difficult thing, so the government now is working out a program that we can actually help to provide support to those people, so that they can get ready because we are planning that those people once they go to work with NCL for the next year onboard the ships that they will come back and take jobs up within the project, so they will be well trained. Its all a win-win; we are training people for employment, we are training small businesses to take advantage, we are helping them to develop the product itself and we are making sure that all this is being done with a good level of economic and environmental sustainability."

Reporter
"The BTIA shared some concerns about the project. Are those concerns being considered?"

Mike Singh - CEO, Ministry of Trade
"Well they have written to the DOE and I can't really comment on that because I am not a part of responding on that. I will tell you my personal opinion, I believe the BTIA is doing a good job of keeping its eye on the best interest of Belize and I applaud them for pointing out things that I believe as a government we need to incorporate and make sure those things are dealt with."

Tune to tomorrow's newscast, where we'll put those difficult questions to the CEO that BTIA Placencia's President Stewart Krohn wants answered about the controversies surrounding the project's economic benefit to the country.

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