Hon. Member of Parliament for the Portsmouth constituency, Ian Douglas, is confident that the Town of Portsmouth can be developed into a model town for the Eastern Caribbean.
Hon. Douglas was speaking at the closing ceremony of a small business training in Portsmouth last Tuesday.
The Hon. MP told the 140 participants that their small businesses should be pillars for the economic development of Portsmouth.
“Micro, small and medium sized enterprises, these is what runs every economy in the world, the great economies like the United States of America, the United Kingdom, all of the great economies in Asia, like Malaysia, Singapore and China, these economies are underpinned by small businesses like you. It’s not the big conglomerates that really hold an economy together, it’s small businesses. And even in the Caribbean, in Dominica, in Portsmouth, it is our small businesses that must underpin our economy…”
Hon. Douglas believes there is opportunity for small businesses in Portsmouth to thrive and contribute to the town’s development.
“Portsmouth has every single thing we need to be one of the first rate developing towns of the Eastern Caribbean. We have one of the best ports in the Eastern Caribbean, we have one of the best harbours…”
“We have hotels that have been established here and even more to come; we have internationally branded hotels to come to Dominica right now and even one of the sons of our soil, Allick Lawrence, one of the most successful lawyers in Dominica, will be putting down an international branded hotel in the Coconut Beach area. We have the Kempinski, that had just started and is moving on quite nicely thanks to the Citizenship by Investment funds and we have the Moroccan hotel which is nearing completion. So, every single business idea that you can think of can be successful in the Portsmouth area.”
Hon. Douglas encouraged the small business owners to harness the potential for development of their constituency.
He highlighted that Government is investing heavily into small businesses in that area.
“We have tremendous potential in Portsmouth, we just have to harness our potential, and the Government now is putting actual monies behind your ideas.”
Government, through the Ministry of Commerce, Enterprise and Small Business Development, recently made available $500K to the Portsmouth town council for assisting entrepreneurs.