By Anas Almasri
The Cayman Enterprise City has opened its doors to new company registrations this month, as boasted by the Premier of the Cayman Islands, McKeeva Bush in his latest New Year address. The CEC hopes to attract many of the 94,000 offshore companies already registered in the Cayman Islands.
The special purpose economic zone, which is said to be the first of its kind in the Caribbean region, offers businesses a host of unique benefits from advanced infrastructure and quick set up procedures to operational incentives, including many tax exemptions.
The resulting business friendly environment of the CEC is expected to attract fresh investment to the Islands as well as provide several thousand job-opportunities to Caymanians.
he CEC zone is now operational; and the Special Economic Zones Law passed the Legislative Assembly in September. Furthermore, the Special Economic Zone Authority had its first meeting last week, and it is prepared to license the first zone companies in January 2012 the Premier had said in his message.
It has been only 11 months since the Cayman government signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Hon Development Company, marking the launch of the Cayman Enterprise City project.
In February 2010, the City CEO, Jason Blick, had estimated that once the project was fully completed it would add 5,000 direct jobs and 4,800 indirect jobs. He also projected that the Cayman Enterprise City contribution to the Islands GDP could reach up to 15 percent on a yearly basis, as a result of the future economic activity generated by the CEC.
Among the features that officials hope will prove attractive to international businesses are full exemptions of income tax, corporate tax, and capital gains tax. Additionally, companies will have the ability to freely and fully repatriate capital and profits with no taxes imposed, as well as be 100 percent foreign owned.
In a move showing how eager the City is to accelerate its progress, it formed a strategic alliance with the licensing authority for Dubai Jumeirah Lakes Tower Free Zone, Dubai Multi Commodities Center Authority (DMCC) late 2010.
In an interview with Asia Outbound, Chief Executive Officer of Cayman Enterprise City, Jason Blick, confirmed that the zone was pen for business stating that they were already prepared to facilitate new company registrations through everal carefully selected CEC Gateway locations within existing prime office space in and around George Town, Grand Cayman
his enables a business to establish an office or branch straight away within CEC gateway accommodations through their twelve-day fast-track seamless set-up process he added.
Hilary McKenzie Cahill, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at CEC, told Asia Outbound that the special economic zone would prove attractive to Chinese businesses of any size.
hether a start-up venture with only a few employees, a mid-sized or large international operation with many staff, Cayman Enterprise City has a wide selection of Class-A facilities ready to meet the specific requirements of Chinese business. /p>
She then described some of the custom tailored services offered to China increasingly global companies, any businesses are taking advantage of our flexible turnkey solutions, which include all the permits, licenses, office facilities and Mandarin and Cantonese support
