THE HAGUE - For necessary investments Curaçao, Aruba and Sint Maarten mainly rely on their own resources and private capital. The contributions from the Netherlands will be limited to an average of 40 million euros per country, Undersecretary Knops of Kingdom Relations said in the policy debate with the Dutch Senate.

The Undersecretary added that he was willing to help the countries in tapping into funds. But: "The newly established Dutch Invest-NL is only aimed at investments in the Netherlands, including in the Caribbean Netherlands, but it does not have the option to make investments in the countries."

Added value

“That would be possible with the joint venture agreements, such as Invest International. There are good opportunities there. Invest International can support Dutch companies to invest, for example in emerging markets abroad. That is also possible in the Caribbean countries. We are currently discussing this. Exploratory discussions are taking place about this,” says Knops.

“What's important here again is that you can address the kingdom entity. This can be a great advantage for the countries. You can now see this in the way in which the countries can get cheap loans through the Netherlands. Then you see here again added value of the Kingdom, because the Netherlands is a partner who safely offers this fund a kind of portal to do business in the countries as well.”

Economize

Knops did add a caveat: “It will also depend on whether there is stable governance in the countries, whether it is even interesting to invest there, what the prospects are and whether people are willing to go through transitions. around sustainability. I cannot say anything about that now. But I can say that we are talking about this with this fund.”

But, the Undersecretary emphasized, the countries must also make room in their own budgets: “It is the primary responsibility of the countries to get their public finances in order, to enable investments in public facilities as well. By making cutbacks where possible, you can free up resources for new investments. The Netherlands has done that, and the countries will have to do that too.”