The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas Chamber of Commerce's chief executive yesterday said the organisation will be "monitoring the returns" from its trade mission to Washington DC last week.

Edison Sumner told Tribune Business: "The trade mission went extremely well. We met with a number of business persons in the DC and Baltimore area. We had meetings with the DC Chamber and Baltimore Chamber.

"It was a 16-member delegation from both the public and private sector. I led the private sector delegation and the minister of state for Grand Bahama, Kwasi Thompson, led the Government delegation."

Mr Sumner said the Chamber of Commerce signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the DC Chamber. "We established some relationships and we will be monitoring to see how those relationships grow over time," he added.

"The MOU will advance the relationship between the DC Chamber and the Bahamas Chamber, and explore opportunities for trade and commerce. We were very excited about that exchange."

"We will monitor the returns on it as far as business development side," Mr Sumner added of the mission. "We feel that based on feed back we are going to see some positive results, and see some businesses established in Bahamas or at least some joint ventures.

"We don't expect anything to materialise immediately but we are hopeful. There was a lot of interest expressed in Grand Bahama and a lot of talk about trying to attract new business into GB on the technology side."