Bahamas Trade Commission Chairman, Sen. Hon. Barry Griffin says the government is pursuing legislation to address the cost of living. He also spoke to plans to boost Grand Bahama’s economy through trade initiatives.
While attending a town hall meeting on the island of Abaco Griffin told ZNS News, “as we know the Freeport Container Port, it’s one of the deep harbour ports, one of the largest in the western hemisphere and we’ve always had ambitions of using that to its greatest capacity. With all of this trade going on we’re now sort of reinvigorating our desire to push the Freeport Container Port as a transshipment hub for goods.”
The Senator also revealed that the initiative would be used to strengthen ties with governments in Africa. “So you would see the Hon. Ginger Moxey heavily pushing the Freeport Container Port as a transshipment point for African goods coming to the Caribbean and Latin America. She also has a new plan and initiative to market the Freeport Container Port to bring goods to the United States.”
Senator Griffin also spoke about how the Freeport Container Port can take advantage of new policies of the Trump Administration charging hefty fees for Chinese made ships docking at US ports. He said, “the reality is China is the largest ship builder in the world now. Many of the ships around the world are in fact Chinese built. So this is going to affect a huge amount of ships, not just those coming to The Bahamas but those that service the world and even service the United States. So this may be a very good opportunity for Grand Bahama to pitch itself for these Chinese built ships to dock in Grand Bahama, offload products and then goods can then be shipped to the US in smaller ships or other ships built by the United States.”
