By Nazario Rodriguez Jr.
Horizon news staff

Press reports early this month revealed that Outrigger Enterprises Group is ready to build and manage a luxury resort here in Palau as part of its expansion to the West Pacific Region.
According to the Hawaii-based Pacific Business News (PBN) in its online report on Feb. 2, the company will put up a $40 million worth resort and spa hotel to be erected in Echang village here in Koror.
The facility will have 100 hotel rooms, 50 condominium villas and 10 bungalows built over the water to be completed in late 2009, the PBN wrote.
The PBN reported that this hotel would be Outrigger’s second property in the Pacific.
The PBN also noted that in 1995, Outrigger worked to develop the former Outrigger Palasia Hotel Palau with developer Sen. Alan Seid, chairman of Micronesia Investment and Development Corp., which is working on the new project along with Agor Development Group.
"We're delighted to be returning to Palau," the PBN quoted David Carey, president and CEO of Outrigger.
"Our company's initial steps to take the Outrigger brand beyond the shores of Hawaii began over a decade ago when we signed our first offshore agreement with Alan Seid and MIDCORP to assist in the development and opening of the former Outrigger Palasia Hotel Palau."
The PBN quoted Seid as saying that the Outrigger project is on target with the government's efforts to attract higher-spending visitors to Palau.
"Additionally, the people of Palau will benefit economically with the jobs the project will bring and the visitors the Outrigger Palau Resort will attract," Seid has told the PBN.