Ebanks hopes to enhance maritime business
(CNS): Financial Services Minister André Ebanks travelled to Athens, Greece, last week to support Maritime Authority of the Cayman Islands (MACI) CEO Joel Walton and his staff in meetings with members of the Greek shipping community. The trip was part of MACI’s year-long celebrations of the 120-year anniversary of the Cayman Islands Shipping Registry and comes as Cayman works on modernising its maritime sector and the legislative framework to attract more international business.
“These meetings come at an important time, where we are maintaining our good international standing with regards to tax, finalising a modernised Merchant Shipping Act to assist with the enhancement of our maritime-related business, while celebrating the 120th anniversary of our Shipping Registry,” Ebanks said.
“I’m optimistic that the result of these meetings will lead to stronger maritime ties and new international shipping business opportunities for our Maritime Authority,” he added.
Ebanks also headed across to Spain, where he met with European officials to talk about international tax cooperation and other regulatory updates ahead of the important Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Plenary in Paris at the end of this month. In Madrid, the minister met with Maria José Garde, the Spanish General Director of Taxation and Chair of the EU Code of Conduct Group, among others.
At the end of this month, Ebanks and Attorney General Samuel Bulgin will attend the FATF Paris meeting to represent the Cayman Islands during the proceedings, which will determine whether or not this jurisdiction will finally be removed from the FATF grey list of places with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing deficiencies. Ebanks will also attend the 2023 EU Tax Symposium in Brussels during his second European trip this month.
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Category: Business, Financial Services
The race to the tax bottom has already happened in shipping but perhaps it is a look at attracting the family offices or poaching some of Bermuda’s business.
In Bermuda a number of shipping groups with subs and presence on that island (TK) and I can think of one here.
One wealthy owner could bring good inward investment.
That ship sailed long time.
I would dearly love for any of the participants to outline the value of these trips in simple language, NOT POLITI-speak ramble.
This is where they look at us sadly and tell us we aren’t “looking at the big picture.” Well, guess what Mr. and Ms. wealthy politician, I can’t afford the big picture, because I have to concern myself with the little picture, which is a view of my kids and their immediate future. I bet you would spend the money differently if you had to itemise it before you booked these extravagant produce-nothing trips.
Let’s trade. Let’s let me waste YOUR money for a year, and you can continue to waste mine. You might learn to love plastic shoes and polyester clothing. You might learn to love gnawing on bones for the last little morsel of meat. I think we’d find that I’m not nearly as skilled at wasting money as you. I’d probably invest it wisely and ruin the entire experiment.
What a load of ship.
Yawn, any big yacht owner with a lick of sense would think twice about registering under the Cayman flag, look at how quickly they rolled over and burnt the Russians after wining and dining them to register, and didn’t stand up for their paying customers, a team with no backbone is all I can say.
You may want to check you stupid comments before making such ill informed accusations. Having worked with MACI I know for a fact that this was/is not the case.
If all overseas “conferences”, “plenary sessions” and/or parliamentary talk shops were held in, for example, Mali or Chad, not one single one of our politicians or civil servants or statutory authorities bosses would find it necessary to go.
I thought the premier said there would cut backs? Not certain how the visit helps the country’s economy?
Must have been good to go on these jollies Mr. Ebanks? Did you talk Greek and Spanish officials about helping with patrolling our maritime borders and performing drug interdiction ops. Surely their navies and coastguard would like to put a plug in our drug transshipment pipeline or might that conflict with what minister Bryan is trying to modernise?
Apart from obtaining even more frequent flyer miles, what is the business case for Mr Ebanks attending the EU Tax Symposium,and meeting with Greek shipping owners(how many have their ships on the Cayman Registry?).
What a waste of money!!!!