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Vandaag laten we Felix D. Pinedo aan het woord.

The future of Curacao’s financial-economic situation seems to be dependent of the petrochemical multinationals. The whole situation about our refinery, runned by the Venezuela-owned PdVSA speaks for itself. The interest and possible involvement of the Chinese (Guandong Zhenrong Energ’y, GZE), seems to be failing according to the latest developments. That’s why I made myself the question: ‘what’s next then’, ‘what’s the alternative’?

Accordìng to me, one fast solution that can boost our economy in a very short period, which is that Curacao has to become an important gameplayer again in what was called the ‘offshore business’. Nowadays there are different terminologies for the same 01d name. By the end of 2019 there will be an end of our offshore business according to agreements between our country and the Netherlands and USA. The dissastrous knockdown of our offshore business by the USA and the Netherlands (who should be considered as our ‘alliances’), is wel] known.

Why can’t we start our own way of handling with this (quasi)taxhaven fenomena? How can we include for instance the Bitcoin fenomena? The British Virgin Islands e.g. is wide open for business on large scales regarding this taxhaven fenomena, that is here to stay for a lot of years to come. That also counts for Panama and the Cayman Islands.

As long as there is so much money around, the business of offshore financing facilities is wide open to grab. The out of the box thinkìng is how to manage to maintain it as legal as possible. The millionairs and billionairs of the world are using the loopholes in the USA and the Netherlands to evade taxes via trust companies and other administrative constructions. The names of royal families and other prominent people and companies were mentioned in connection with the latest publications regardìng for instance the Paradise Papers. Well known are also the Swisspapers.

Both the USA and the Netherlands according to publications, has their bastions in e.g. Manhattan and Amsterdam who are connected to the taxhavens.

So why are we letting them strangulate us while there is lot of room for our island to play a role in the world of trust- havens, eventually with some modiications in the laws so it will be (more) acceptable? It is time for us to stand up and show the USA and the Netherlands, that we are going to take back our piece of the pie from wich they were eating for so many years.

There is a lot of money out there to be gained, so why can’t we be one of the big players like we used to be? We have a much better telecommunication infrastructure nowadays and finance/tax professionals, which are some of the leading requirements in this matter. Our tax companies, Cifa, Cinex, the government and tax lawyers, please start thinking out of the box and come with a new string of taxhaven in Curacao to attract lots of capital to the benefit of the population of Curacao. We need a ‘think tank’ that will discuss continually on this matter and come to practical advises for the government. Do not say, ‘this guy is crazy’, but try to find the loophole to make it legit before others jump in before us.

When the loophole is sealed by the government (of foreign countries), look for another one and so on. A quote out of a report in 2014 of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ): ‘During bis time in office, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg was a cheerleader for encouragìng the megawealthy to relocate to the city. ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could get all the Russian billionaìres to move here?’, he told New York Magazine in September.”

For instance now that Dutch banks tend to put higher tarief’s for trust companies accounts (or are rejecting new accounts), why can’t our (trust)banks in Curacao pitch in?

Felix D. Pinedo,
Curacao