The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

THE Grand Bahama Port Authority's (GBPA) chairman believes "good progress" was made in meetings with the principals behind the $225 million World Mart trade market proposed for Freeport, adding that there were "a lot of good signs out there" for the city's economy.

Speaking to Tribune Business from London, Ian Fair said "significant interest" was being shown in Freeport by international investors and businessmen, and the Port Authority now needed to get potential projects "out of the pipeline".

Existing economic assets were also performing well, particularly the Grand Bahama Shipyard, and Mr Fair told this newspaper it was anticipated that container traffic and throughput at the Freeport Container Port would increase between now and year-end.

Suggesting that Freeport had previously suffered an 'identity problem', in that it had been marketed to international investors collectively with Nassau/Paradise Island and the Family Islands, Mr Fair also disclosed that the GBPA had yet to receive a business licence application for the much-touted $200 million MidAtlantic Petroleum oil terminal project.

Commenting on the recent discussions between the GBPA and World Mart team, which included Bahamian principals Ken Hutton and Joe Thompson, plus their construction and potential equity partner, the US arm of Beijing Construction and Engineering Group, Mr Fair said of the project: "It's progressing from what we understand.

"We had a good meeting with the whole group. Some of them, the people involved, have not been to Freeport before. It was good for them to do due diligence collectively on what Freeport had to offer. We had a cordial meeting with them, and it was good progress."

Tribune Business understands, though, that the World Mart group's plans for a meeting with senior government ministers and officials during the same week did not materialise.

They had been due to meet Ryan Pinder, minister of financial service; Dr Michael Darville, minister for Grand Bahama; Grand Bahama-based MP, Gregory Moss, and other officials, but no meeting took place after the government side failed to appear.

Still, World Mart, which is designed as a buyers/merchant market, where manufacturers and businesses from Asia and elsewhere can show their products and wares to Western Hemisphere clients, has been described as "a game changer" for Freeport and the entire Bahamas.

It is thought to be the only project presently on the drawing board that could truly 'transform' Freeport's moribund economy, which has been perpetually struggling since the 2004 hurricane season and Royal Oasis closure. Its principals have previously estimated that it could have a $400 million annual economic impact and create between 6,000-8,000 jobs.

Pointing out that projects such as World Mart "don't happen overnight", and that the GBPA's role was that of a licensing authority, Mr Fair told Tribune Business: "It's for us to determine that the plans and projects they have make sense from our point of view.

"Is it the correct business plan, and is the funding in place? Once we see the bonafides of that come into place, we'll grant the licence, and then potentially these things happen in short order."

Meanwhile, Mr Fair said the GBPA had yet to receive a business licence application from MidAtlantic Petroleum, a company whose oil terminal project has been much-touted in the industry trade press.

"We have not received a licence application. We have received no application from them for a licence," he told Tribune Business, "and when we have an application, action will be taken."

Still, Mr Fair said Freeport was attracting increased international business interest, especially given that some parts of the world economy had progressed in recovery from the recession, and were now seeking business and investment opportunities.

"We've got a lot of things in the pipeline, and significant interest is being shown in Freeport," the GBPA chairman said. "We've got a significant amount of inquiries, and we're pretty happy with the prospects in it. What we've got to do now is get them out of the pipeline."

The GBPA, he indicated, was set to target those projects that were "the low hanging fruit", fully financed and the "best fit" for Freeport. But existing Grand Bahama businesses were also performing well.

"The Shipyard are having a very good year, and other businesses that do not have such a high profile are doing very well," Mr Fair told Tribune Business. 'We think that between now and the end of the year, there will be an increase in traffic coming to the Container Port. There are a lot of good signs out there."

An increase in container traffic and throughput at the Freeport Container Port would be significant, given that the facility suffered a 47 per cent operating income drop in 2011 due to a sharp decline in cargo transshipments to the US east coast.

The Freeport Container Port also saw the throughput of 20-foot equipment units (TEUs) decline by 1 per cent year-over-year to 1.116 million in 2011.

Pointing to the unity at boardroom level at the GBPA, Mr Fair described attracting new investment to Freeport as the "absolute highest" priority.

"I'm very energised as to what's happening in Freeport. It has the opportunity to be a driver of so many areas," he told Tribune Business. "We're all on the same page, and out of that can only come good results."

Describing the GBPA as being "in a different era" now, Mr Fair added: "There hasn't been a strong emphasis on marketing Freeport, and it wouldn't have done a lot of good."

That was a reference not only to the recession's impact, but also the four years of infighting between the GBPA's two shareholder families, which disrupted the Port and damaged investor confidence in Freeport.

Mr Fair added, though, that previous marketing efforts had tended to lump Freeport with the rest of the Bahamas, rather than treating it as a different product given its manufacturing/ industrial base.

"Once we really get out there, and market and inform people about Freeport, good things will come," the GBPA chairman said.