Prince Charles and premier discuss eco fund
(CNS): Premier Alden McLaughlin met with Prince Charles at his private residence, Highgrove House, last week, when they discussed a Cayman Islands-based Blue/Green Fund, an initiative that aims to provide financing to environmental projects in the Caribbean, which was introduced to the Prince of Wales when he visited the Cayman Islands in March last year. He also met with the UK’s new overseas territories minister, Baroness Sugg, and other officials.
According to a release about the premier’s London visit, work on the Blue/Green Fund has progressed and is expected to be officially launched at the next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in June by Prince Charles and Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
The Prince of Wales proposed such a fund at the 2015 CHOGM in Malta, but “to date it has not been able to get off the ground” the release from the premier’s office stated, describing Prince Charles as being “excited that Cayman Islands entities and a Cayman Islands fund will finally be able to achieve this longstanding goal”.
The initial funding will be from local investors and the first green project funded by it is expected to be here in the Cayman Islands. “It is anticipated that there are also institutions and wealthy individuals internationally ready to invest a total of US$1 billion into the fund,” the release said, and suggested that the “fund arrangements” could “be replicated to focus on blue/green projects in other parts of the world”.
The premier’s office said, “This is not only exciting for green initiatives generally but also shows the value of the Cayman Islands’ financial products in providing solutions to benefit green initiatives in the region and beyond.”
McLaughlin also met with Baroness Sugg, the UK’s new overseas territories minister, which his office said was “very productive”. The premier, accompanied by Chief Officer of the Ministry of International Trade Eric Bush, Andre Ebanks of the Cayman Islands London Office and Senior Political Advisor Roy Tatum, “discussed a broad range of issues facing the Cayman Islands” with Baroness Sugg, including the Cayman Islands recent blacklisting by the European Union.
The Cayman delegations, which included representatives from from the Cayman Islands finance industry, also held meetings with Conor Burns, Minister of State for International Trade, and Sir Edward Lister, Chief Strategic Advisor to the Prime Minister.
The release said this was an opportunity for them “to provide key advisors of Prime Minister Boris Johnson with an update of the business done in the Cayman Islands, including our fund services, and to speak about the recent EU blacklisting”.
The Cayman delegation reportedly received assurances that the new Tory government “continued to have every confidence in the Cayman Islands and in our financial services business”, the premier’s office said, adding that the British officials “committed to considering making a public statement confirming this confidence”.
They also discussed the potential for UK and Cayman trade, especially in financial services, as well as the Blue/Green Fund.
The Cayman delegation also met with officials with the City of London to discuss areas of possible cooperation.
The delegation, which returned to Cayman on Friday, included Alasdair Robertson of Maples, Jess Shakespeare of Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Dan Scott and Eleanor Fisher of Ernst & Young, Kevin Lloyd of KPMG, as well as Lord Jonathan Marland, Chairman of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council.
McLaughlin said the meetings in London were “very successful” and “provided an opportunity to meet with some key advisors to the prime minister and to have them hear directly from Cayman business people about our financial services industry and to better understand what we do here, including the extent of our institutional client base”.
He added, “We also discussed the EU listing process and the impact that Brexit politics would have had on that.”
The meetings, which were organised by the premier’s Ministry of International Trade, Investment, Aviation, and Maritime Affairs, are part of the ongoing engagement strategy and partnership with the UK Government and the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council, his office said.
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Category: Business, Financial Services, Politics
Biggest hypocrites, did you inform them of the illegal mangrove clearing that the CPA is now endorsing ? Yet begging for money from the people eco fund….
How about Alden and he cronies address the issue regarding the Speaker of the House instead of all of them remaining silent!
Sh@t forgot Cayman short term memory loss!
This story seems to have died a death.
No it hasn’t. However not to much will happen without the support of some of the government’s bench. We all know how that story will end. Not too many clean hands and pure hearts there !
Who is monitoring police investigation? How much longer are they going to investigate?
maybe charlie should be told about mount trashmore…
“Did you take the woman-beater with you?” “Which one, I gave positions to a few of them.”
Other headlines today “no one arrested for illegal clearing of mangrove”
How bout preservation of hospitality employees…they are being beaten by government officials at unsustainable rates
I don’t really understand. Is Alden having a change of heart from “if God had to do an EIA, he would still be doing the paperwork” to sitting in a room with the future King talking about protecting the environment? Or is he just being two faced? It is so hard to rationalise the two sides.
Did he mention that the new Marine Conservation Law everyone thought was implemented to celebrate the Royal visit still has not been passed? And he wants more money to do what?????
Alden will try anything to feign responsible compliance and stave-off FCO Orders in Council…
It would be nice if the DOE was given the money to actively protect the environment and the management capable of implementing enforcement.
Did we get any money to find us a new Speaker of the LA??👍
We don’t need new money. Just give him (her) whatever an appointed speaker gets.
Do not give any money to Alden for any “eco” fund, just Check how the funds for our own “environment” fund have been spent. Why would you even ask for “eco” money when you are allowing the entire island to be built up on? We are about to put a highway thru the interior of the island and that will be the last time you see a tree unless it’s in your yard, better ask for a fund to employ sweeper trucks and trash collectors cause we will be concrete island pretty soon.
8.37pm Another of those eco terrorists who are against anything and everything including the East West arterial road. They don’t care about us in the eastern districts who sit in traffic every morning for 2 hrs. They don’t care because they live in or near town so they don’t have 2 hr delays. I swear these people have lost their cotton picking minds.
Only fools think roads solve traffic. Google ‘induced demand’. Here, I’ve helped you out already:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand
“In rapidly growing areas where roads were not designed for the current population, there may be a great deal of latent demand for new road capacity, which causes a flood of new drivers to immediately take to the freeway once the new lanes are open, quickly clogging them up again”
To 10.09 Of course we could reduce the traffic by taking a few of you foreign drivers off the roads. Thanks for opening my eyes.
Whilst Caymanians continue to utilise their incompetent driving skills to kill themselves and the innocent.
Try holding your bigotry and racism, start thinking and implementing a sustainable and integrated public transport system that allows people to travel in safety and comfort.
This would allow people from the northern and eastern districts the opportunity to move around the island without relying on rental cars, undersized and under regulated buses, expensive taxis or the unnecessary use of private cars. Large, regulated buses with professional drivers that cover all corners of the island on a mandatory timetable would be a start. Integrate with a competent and regular ferry service covering several locations within the North Sound at times between 7am and11pm would help, as would buses and taxis based at ferry terminals.
Building roads isn’t the answer, it will help to take traffic out of residential areas, but the country needs less reliance on private and rental cars, first and foremost.
Concrete is eco-friendly, it absorbs CO2
Do these leaders Alden met with understand that the people of Cayman pay extra duties that are supposed to go to funding the dump & recycling? Now he’s asking for more gravy to be squandered on “other” things. I hope UK get wise to his begging!
@7.08pm Boy the antibots are out in full force. If you’re looking for a downer, just find a CNS post featuring our Government and jump straight to the comment section. It seems pretty clear that it is an organized attempt to discredit and bring down this administration. The big question is who do they wish to install.Could it have anything to do with that attempt to get voting rights for all British expats in Cayman. Not sure . But somebody is sure working hard to make this Govt fail.
This government doesn’t need any help, 9:46 pm. They have accomplished failure all by themselves.
Boy you are nimble 10.26. You managed to side step my main argument quite easily. Now deal with it and stop trying to deflect.
Don’t like straight shooters much do you?
What extra duties are these that you refer to? No such thing exists. Import duties were actually reduced a few years ago
Special environmental import fees on cars and tyres but it is not ring-fenced and is spent randomly.
High time we had a House of Lords, just imagine, Lord McKeeva of Barkers and Baroness JuJu of the Bluff.
You are too funny!
Well that was a lowQ room.
3.30pm I hope she forces you to sleep on the couch again tonight Grumpy.