Prime Minister Perry Christie revealed that Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) is seeking to invest up to $200 million to develop a small cay in The Bahamas. Christie said the project, which is contingent on government approval, would create construction and permanent jobs. However, he did not indicate how many jobs. MSC intends to use the cay, which is near Grand Bahama and Bimini, as a cruise destination.
Christie foreshadowed the project in a communication in the House of Assembly on Monday. He said the government is also considering a proposal to expand the Freeport Container Port.
"There is going to be an expansion of the container port," he told The Nassau Guardian.
"The plans are being finished now. Part and parcel of the discussions we will have in London will be with respect to the details concerning that. We are also meeting with Mediterranean cruises who will be developing somewhere between $100 million and $200 million in an island formerly known as Ocean Cay.
"We are negotiating a heads of agreement now that they're going to put a new destination there, hire Bahamians and as a result of approval they will also start an academy to train Bahamians in Freeport, all of this early in the new year and we will come back with the timing of it."
Christie is expected to address the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Malta and hold several business meetings before returning home
"Immediately thereafter [I go] to Paris for a meeting on climate change where world leaders will convene in Paris at the end of November and beginning of December," he said in the House of Assembly.
"Thereafter into London where I am meeting with Hutchison-Whampoa on matters relevant to the extension (of the Container Port)... and with respect to the law relating to business license and the law relating to real property tax."
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