Premier also announces CAL routes to Dallas, Panama
The long awaited extension of the Owen Roberts International Airport is planned to commence this year.
Speaking at the Fidelity Cayman Business Outlook conference at the Westin Casuarina Resort on Thursday, Premier McKeeva Bush said the plan would be to extend the runway inland instead of into the North Sound. Previous plans had called for an extension both ways, but he said the cost of extending the runway inland would be “$8 to $11 or $12 million, maybe a little more” while extending it into the North Sound would cost $35 million.
“What say ye?” he asked the estimated 350 people in attendance, adding the decision to go the least expensive route made sense.
Mr. Bush said extending the runway inland would necessitate “moving the road”, apparently in reference to the portion of Crewe Road in between the Dorcy Drive/Shedden Road roundabout and the Smith Road junction.
“Thank God there’s no ocean to see there,” he said, taking a jab at those who have protested the proposed closure of 2,500 feet of West Bay Road because it will take away their view of the ocean. “I suspect there will be a petition.”
The extension of the runway at Owen Roberts Airport has long been cited as a need in order to facilitate larger, long-haul jets, which are seen as necessary to attract more tourism from Europe and the US west coast. Cayman Enterprise City, the special economic zone that is expected to break ground in the first quarter of this year, has also cited the runway extension as important to the scope of its success.
Mr. Bush said he hoped all the “due diligence” required on the project before it could start would be completed by August of this year.
New Cayman Airways routes
Mr. Bush said government-owned Cayman Airways, which has long been a drain on the public purse, was doing much better, something evidenced by the fact that it was hardly discussed in the political area anymore.
“It’s no longer the political football it was,” he said.
He announced two new seasonal routes are planned to commence this year.
“Cayman Airways will start a Panama route in April, something like two times weekly,” he said, adding the scheduling would run through August. “It will be seasonal for now.”
He also said regular service to Dallas would start, possibly as soon as May.
“That, too, will be seasonal,” Mr. Bush said.
Cruise ship berthing facility
Speaking about the proposal to build the cruise ship berthing facility in George Town, Mr. Bush said he was “taking a lot of hell from the radio shows and editorials” about the choice of using China Harbour Engineering Company for the project.
“The Chinese is the best company to do cruise facilities,” he said. “Nobody else had the money, except Mr. Dart, and they wanted 99 years [for a lease of the upland portion of the project] and everybody said ‘no’ so we walked away.”
Mr. Bush said that in addition to the government – or any of its entities – not having to borrow any money to make the deal happen, the China Harbour proposal would include:
An upgrade Spotts Dock facility for the cruise ships during inclement weather;
A jetty in West Bay that would allow more cruise ship passengers to visit the Turtle Farm tourist attraction to help reduce its $9 million annual loss;
All materials used for the projects that could be purchased locally, would be purchased locally;
Labour imported for the project would have to use existing housing; there will be no trailers imported for foreign workers;
China Harbour will carry out ongoing maintenance on the port;
The upland development portion of the project will be done by local contractors;
Caymanians can purchase shares in the upland portion of the development;
After China Harbour pays off its investment – which the government thinks will be in 25 years – there will be a profit sharing scheme where government would receive 40 per cent of the profits.
New CTC chair and other announcements
Mr. Bush also made several other announcements, including that Nick Freeland, who retired as managing partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers last year, has taken over as the new chairman of the Central Tenders Committee.
On the tourism front, Mr. Bush said the figures for stay-over tourism in 2011, which will be released next week, will show more than 309,000 people arrived by air last year, the highest since 2001.
He also said another special economic zone would be established for reinsurance companies to help attract them to Cayman.
With regard to direct taxation, Mr. Bush said there would be no payroll tax, no income tax and no property tax in the Cayman Islands.
Challenges
Although he said we were living through “extremely challenging and uncertain times”, he said the challenges we face today “pale in comparison to what we’ve faced before”, referring to the period in Cayman before tourism and the financial services industry.
He called on the media to stop printing “the rubbish that is teaching our children division”.
He noted that he and his government take a lot of criticism for their decisions, but that those who criticise aren’t talking about alternative solutions.
Mr. Bush said there were two keys for Cayman to thrive: not being afraid to dream and to be willing to work together to make those dreams a reality.
He urged the many business people it the audience to start employing Caymanians again now that the financial crisis was easing somewhat and he vowed to work with businesses to ensure they got work permits for the top overseas talent they needed to stay competitive in a global market.
“Mediocrity will not prevail,” he said. “No one is going to give a billion dollars to mediocrity to manage.”
Mr. Bush said Cayman had to be welcoming to the overseas businesses it was trying to attract, allowing them to bring in the people the needed so they could truly establish here.
“If the companies only have a nameplate, then [overseas governments and regulators] will have a right to cuss us,” he said, noting that while such practices might have been true in the past, it wasn’t what the Cayman Islands was about now.
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A sensible decision!
And this is why I say….GOOOOOO BUSH. You have my vote.
He gets the jobs done. Let him finish. Then complain.
But CAVE wants to complain first, and then nothing gets done.
Interesting Mr. Premiere; That you now use such language as due diligence instead of cutting red tape, that is definitely a step in the right direction.
Someone need to tie down the loose end in regard to the time frame for our profit sharing to kick in and China harbor recoup of their investment.
No taxes.. just as long as we don’t have to sell the ground on which the golden eggs are being laid. (Profit Sharing helps) but keep the nesting area un-encumbered for as short a period as possible is wise. Our children may have a new plan later on for the place.
Mr. Bush said Cayman had to be welcoming to the overseas businesses it was trying to attract, allowing them to bring in the people the needed so they could truly establish here.
If this be the case, then what is our return?.. Still trickling down !.
This statement need to change and we should be able to say; we have the people they need..
Our education Minister need to survey schools abroad for best practices, and adopt them here in our schools. We need to bring in best in class teachers to build top in class graduates.. We need to be advertising the Cayman people for more than smiles and friendly faces..
A mediocre education is not acceptable: lets move the goal post to a new level and allow every Caymanian child birthright inheritance of education to college level..
The 1%s with their full page point of remaining status quo and demanding fulfillment of their mandate is just that a demand ..
It is essential the we are not held captive by profit mongers who has no national boundary save their bottom line. At the end of the day we must safeguard our essential services of Water, Electricity, telecommunication and transportation as national interest, with regulated safeguards to insure continuity and avoidance of being held for ransom..
I am Just saying..
good job sir!
I believe the Premier was premature in suggesting that there will not be a petition against the runway expansion. Many organizations are becoming quite adept in producing petitions and encouraging people to sign them. The cricket group could join with the West Bay Alliance and Save Cayman and another petition could be forthcoming.
And where, may I ask, is all the money coming from for his grand schemes?
Howdy from Dallas, Texas. Great news to hear Cayman Airways is coming to DFW. Can’t wait for my direct flight to GCM. Yehaw, EE here I come.
Panama_Jack, It actually sound like he’s saying that he expect there will be a petition…I think he expects a petition against anything he proposes…
Can’t see any reasonable argument with lengthening the runway. I’ve spoken to BA pilots who fly the route and they describe it as the carrier landing -too short and nowhere to go except the sea if things go wrong.
The part of the logic I would fault is the assumption that the extension will automatically attract direct tourist flights from Europe. Let’s say as an example four airlines or package holiday operators decide they want to fly in around a 1000 pax a week there are two immediate problems. The first is where are you going put them and the second is how are you going match the kind of all-inclusive hoiday rates offered by popular European destinations like Cuba, Sharm El Sheik or even the Maldives.
The package tour industry, which is really the only game in town if the Cayman Islands seriously want to get into the UK/Europe market, is increasingly going the all-inclusive route and that’s something that isn’t being properly catered (sic!) for in the Cayman Islands right now.
If you want tourists from this side of the Atlantic there’s going to have to be some serious hotel building and changes of attitude within the current hotel operations. To start off places that are currently holding out for 150-200 (inc. taxes) a night for a glorified motel room are going to have to trade off occupancy for profit margins if they want to deal with package tour operators. The government is also going to have to review those taxes because in some cases these can work out more than the total room rate being paid by holiday companies like First Choice at other destinations.
The problem the Cayman Islands has seems be that you want the UK/European business but either don’t understand the market over here or simply don’t want to change to accommodate it.
The bottom line here is this – for 100 more than the current return BA flight into Owen Roberts Airport I can currently fly out to spend two weeks in Cuba on an all-inclusive basis – and that’s what you are competing with.
Good to hear that Cayman Airways will be flying the Panama route, brilliant. Can’t wait, Cayman here I come. Straight from Panama. Yes!!!
John, do not forget CAVE.
CAVE will protest against this too, as well as anything else. Then complain there are no jobs.
To support what John Evans is saying, my wife and I just booked a 2 week all-inclusive to Manado, Indonesia and the Bunaken Marine Park. This location has become a bit of an open secret among experienced traveling divers.
Price-wise, our 2 weeks with diving, flights, accommodations and meals (including 2 night of Singapore Stopover) will cost less than what the flights alone to Cayman would cost us.
I’m confused here…Isn’t this already Gazetted? I thought this road was built with the intentions of being closed later in the future…
I have no problem with the runway extension especially since its going inland. But its typical childishness of Mac to take a jab at those protesting the closure of West Bay Rd. Grow up Mac.
Cayman is a long way to becoming a supreme tourist destination. Hotel rooms are way too pricey, transport is not practical unless the tourists are ‘adventurous’ enough to take the public bus. One issue with this the busses are NOT busses, they’re vans. Very uncomfortable. Alternative would be taking cabs. But Cab rates are outrageous. So needless to say they are forced to rent a car. Which adds up to the their bill.
All these can be tolerated if there are sufficient entertainment options – which Cayman lack of. Once the tourists are done with all the water related activities, what is there to do? Turtle farm, Camana Bay………thats it?
Is it worth all that over exorbent amounts of money? NO. Cayman only caters to middle to upper class crowd who are looking to chill and relax. This is a very limited market.
So unless we see all three main components (accommodations, transport and entertainment) are upgraded, Cayman will NOT be able to compete.
No Foresight!
Oh yea! Who really believes that by economizing on the runway extension is a good investment?
At a period of high government deficit, maybe Premier Bush should consider finding someone in the districts to ‘donate’ cemetary land (that government might fill) and take that 8-15 million dollars to use towards properly extending the runway.
Has Mr Bush tried to explain how an updated,longer runway would benefit our islands?? How much more revenue it could bring, not only to the Government (landing fees, travel tax, etc) but to our economy (people)? ‘Course not…it’s election year…districts are more important!!