Set aside the words and focus on the actions
NOW and then, government officials will rhapsodize about the importance of small businesses, and how deserving they are of government (that is, taxpayer) assistance. In February 2023, for example, the then-newly sworn-in governor announced the creation of a “Governor’s Small Business Advisory Council,” so he could “hear…the voices and recommendations of our small businesses on the issues and policies that affect them, and by extension the wider economy.”
As far as we know, it was the last public mention he made about the advisory council. The governor also reneged on his earlier statement, in which he said he didn’t “want to go out and raise taxes again and impose the penalty on the businesses and the people of the Commonwealth because of the misappropriation [and] misdeeds [of] government officials.”
He has proposed fee and tax hikes, and continues to do so. Fortunately, due to sheer political malpractice, his administration lost its razor-thin majority in the Senate, which has since blocked almost all tax-hike proposals from the governor’s rubber-stamp chamber, the House of Representatives.
We hope that the new Senate will continue to protect the CNMI’s hard-pressed taxpayers — including small-business owners and their employees — from the financial follies of this tax-and-overspend administration.
Let MVA do its job
IF the administration truly wants to help small businesses, then it should allow MVA to do its job, which is to boost tourist arrivals from all markets.
As many tourism industry stakeholders will acknowledge, MVA is doing its best given its limited budget, but it is handicapped by an administration that believes it knows more than MVA’s tourism consultants and experts. For close to two years now, MVA has been operating with one hand tied behind its back. Why? Because the governor thinks that cutting off a major tourism market — China — will lead to a gush of federal/military handouts and other assistance that will create a “new and more stable economy” for the CNMI. He has had almost two years to test his, for lack of a better word, “theory.” Now he’s asking for two more? And meanwhile, what? Should taxpayers be expected to fork over more to a government that has failed to revive the tourism industry, but refuses to spend within its means?
You want small businesses to thrive? Then 1) boost tourism so they can have more customers; and 2) shrink the size of big government so it stops preying on taxpayers’ wallets.
Two years wasted
THIRTY years ago, if anyone had suggested that more tourists from Guam than Japan would visit the CNMI, they would have been ridiculed. Well, it has come to pass. According to MVA statistics, since March 2024, when a Japanese cruise ship visited Saipan, arrivals from what was once the CNMI’s top market have been lower than those from Guam. In November 2024, for example, the CNMI had 1,145 visitors from Guam. (How many are former CNMI residents?) In contrast, there were only 479 visitors from Japan — a 12% decrease from the 545 visitors in November 2023. We’re talking about Japan, which has a direct flight service to Saipan, and where MVA is promoting the CNMI.
Despite the absence of direct flights and promotion in China on MVA’s part, what used to be the CNMI’s second largest market provided 800 visitors via Hong Kong in November 2024 — an increase of 228% compared to the arrivals in November 2023. This is why local tourism industry stakeholders believe that with the restoration of direct flights and MVA promotions, arrivals from China are likely to increase further.
Right now, however, all that will take some time. Annex VI has to be reinstated first. Then the CNMI must negotiate with Chinese airlines while MVA once again promote the islands in China. The CNMI could have accomplished all that in the past two years. There could have been more tourists by now — perhaps not as many as pre-pandemic levels, but certainly more than the trickle we have today.
