The country's most significant push to date into the Chinese market will be spearheaded later this year by representatives from the country's financial services sector, a move which seeks to capitalize on a view that the "timing and the market are right" for The Bahamas to tap into Chinese demand for asset diversification.
Minister of Financial Services Ryan Pinder suggested that the decision by the Bahamas Financial Services Board (BFSB) and the Ministry of Financial Services to attend and participate in the China Offshore Summit as 'platinum' sponsors will generate critical exposure for the country.
"The event will be held in October in Beijing, and there will also be country-specific events in Hong Kong and Shanghai. It will allow us to be able to, in a very meaningful way, enter and develop the Chinese financial services sector for The Bahamas, leveraging cooperation from the private sector here," said the minister.
"Certainly the opening of Baha Mar in December is key timing with respect to our investment in China, to be able to leverage the opening and marketing of Baha Mar and work with some of our key partners here who have significant Asian business, and we have the full cooperation of the Chinese embassy here."
Pinder said that while The Bahamas has engaged in the sponsorship of such conferences in the past in China,
the timing of the conference and the level at which the country will participate as a sponsor are expected to be more instrumental in generating business for this nation.
"We think the timing is right; the market is maturing over there in terms of the demand for the international diversification of assets. Coming to office there had been some investment the BFSB had been doing in China; they'd sponsored in the past but not as a platinum sponsor, they'd done light marketing. I have a belief that you either go or don't go, and spreading yourself wide with limited resources doesn't work well.
"We'd made a concerted effort to go to Brazil to market ourselves there and that proved to be a successful strategy. Now we believe the timing is right now with all the activity going on between the Chinese and The Bahamas to focus our resources there," said Pinder.
"We're certainly looking to attract clients to our institutions, to attract high-net-worth individuals who would like to use The Bahamas to access the markets in this hemisphere. We've also had a long-term goal of attracting Chinese investment to use The Bahamas as a hub for trade financing, and so we'll look to advance that too,"he added.

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