‘Enterprise zones’ retained in controversial Bill’s repeal

so we thought that was a valued piece of the legislation that really needed to be expanded upon and reformed.”

The Commercial Enterprises Act was seen as an attempt by the Minnis administration’s to liberalise and deregulate key elements of the Bahamian economy to drive greater GDP growth and job creation, while sending a message to investors - Bahamian and foreignthat the country was open for business.

It was designed to remove the bureaucracy and “red tape” investors encounter when attempting to obtain work permits from the Immigration Department for key management and skilled workers, signalling the Government’s commitment to improving the “ease of doing business”.

The Act sought to introduce certainty and predictability to the work permit regime by requiring the director of immigration to make a decision on their approval within 14 days of the application’s receipt. Applications from businesses covered by the Act have to presently be submitted within 30 days of the worker’s arrival in The Bahamas.

The legislation, though, does not apply to all - only businesses listed in its schedule, and these have to be approved by the Government before they can access the incentives. The Commercial Enterprises Act is largely focused on industries not present in The Bahamas, but which have the potential to create high-earning jobs and be major foreign currency earners. Financial services leads the way with reinsurance; captive insurance; investment fund administration; arbitration; wealth management; international trade and international arbitrage included in the ‘fast track’ work permit sectors. Also covered by the Commercial Enterprises Act are technology-related industries such as computer programming; software design and writing; bioninformatics and analytics; nano technology; and biomedical health facilities.

“Boutique health facilities”; data storage and warehousing; aviation registration and ‘approved’ aviation maintenance operations; ‘call centres’; and manufacturing and assembly/logistics businesses round out the sectors targeted by the former administration, which said there was nothing in the legislation that prevents the Immigration Department from revoking a permit issued under the Act if adverse information is subsequently discovered.

The Act’s introduction was also hailed by many in the private sector. Judith Whitehead, Graham, Thompson & Company’s managing partner, expressed hope during the 2019 Bahamas Business Outlook conference that the 14-day work permit approval deadline imposed on the Department of Immigration by law would result in an improved turnaround time for all other applications. She backed the Act’s introduction as “setting the stage for the future” by moving the Bahamas’ investment incentives regime away from its emphasis on “bricks and mortar” projects, and suggested many of the criticisms surrounding its introduction were misplaced, since the businesses/industries targeted were “a virtual mirror” image of those identified for foreign direct investment (FDI) long ago by the Bahamas Investment Authority (BIA).

Meanwhile, Mr Pinder yesterday said The Bahamas was making rapid progress in tackling the three areas of weaknessadequate legal regime, its enforcement and the economic substance reporting portal - that resulted in the country’s blacklisting last year by the European Union (EU) for being non-cooperative for tax purposes.

“There were really three aspects on why we were on the non-cooperative list. The first one would be the legislation, and updating the legislation to make sure we were complying with international best practices,” he added.

“The second component was the reporting portal was ineffective. That was the one that was put in place at Inland Revenue, and the third component was we needed to show that we were actually enforcing the laws; doing on-site inspections, seeing if everybody was complying who should be complying.”

The Government has hired BDO, which also developed the BOSS (Beneficial Ownership Secure Search System) for The Bahamas to create a purpose-built economic substance reporting portal, which has “already been demoed (demonstrated) by industry.”

A training session will be held this week with the financial services industry on use of the reporting portal, which will help to provide the Government with the necessary feedback. Mr Pinder added: “We’re looking at a full launch of that portal [for the] first week in September, just in time to the for the end of the reporting