NIA CHARLESTOWN NEVIS (December 09, 2020) — The Nevis Investment Promotion Agency (NIPA) website is set to undergo an upgrade designed to improve and expand its services to attract more local and foreign investors to the island.
The announcement came during the Budget Address for 2021, delivered by Hon. Mark Brantley, Premier of Nevis and Minister of Finance and Minister of Foreign Investment in the Nevis Island Administration (NIA) on December 08, 2020.
“In light of the need to be more proactive in the investment market place my Administration is presently undertaking a project to revamp our main marketing arm, the Nevis Investment Promotion Agency.
“This revamping exercise will see the launching of a new interactive and user-friendly website platform, encompassing all the features which we hope will pique the interest of investors and have the effect of luring them to invest in Nevis.
“This new digital platform will form the basis for investment in Nevis, as all potential investors both local and international must first register on this platform, submit their project proposals and other pertinent documents which will then be reviewed and assessed by the competent staff at NIPA, before submission to the Cabinet for consideration,” he said.
The Premier said the need to step up the island’s investment marketing has become necessary in the face an increasingly challenging investment climate due to the COVID pandemic. He said it is therefore imperative that the NIA continue to promote Nevis as a viable place to invest.
“My administration intends to expand our investment promotion drive into such countries as a means to soliciting investment into Nevis by people seeking a stable and rewarding environment…
“My cabinet has already mandated NIPA to specifically target these countries with an enhanced investment pitch as part of our new strategy of looking beyond the traditional investment markets of the USA and Europe, focussing instead on Asia, the Middle East, Russia and other Eastern European countries. We feel that these are now the emerging areas with potential investors looking to expand their portfolios and opt for less stressful lifestyles,” he said.
Through this platform investors will be able to track the progress of their various applications which would have been routed to the various approval agencies of government.
Premier Brantley said the newly revamped NIPA will become the interface between the investor and the various departments of government, namely the Companies Registry, the Department of Physical Planning, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Agriculture.
“This revamping is all in an effort to enhance the investor experience as we seek to increase our ranking in the Ease of Doing Business Index…
“One of the main features of this electronic investment platform will be our ability to list all the professional service providers, development concessions offered by government and the various procedures to be observed when doing business or submitting documents to any of the approval agencies of government.
“This, we feel, will expedite the approval processes and potential investors will be very clear about the documents to be submitted and the processes to be followed in order to obtain the relevant approvals,” he said.
Additional features of the improved NIPA website include the listing of professional services such as lawyers, architects, and surveyors; and the establishment of the Real Estate Database which will allow realtors the opportunity to list all properties currently available for sale.
The Premier informed that the upgrading of the NIPA website should be completed and launched during the first quarter of 2021 when it will become “the catalyst for increased foreign investment into Nevis.”
]]>NIA CHARLESTOWN NEVIS October 14, 2020 (Nevis Island Administration) — The Department of Statistics and Economic Planning in the Ministry of Finance on Nevis will embark on a Pre-census Mapping Exercise from Friday, October 16 to Friday, November 20, 2020, as part of activities leading to the conduct of the Population and Housing Census commencing in September 2021.
Mrs. Dorriel Phillip, Director of the department noted that it is important to find out the true number of households on Nevis to plan for the census next year.
“We have a whole year and there are different exercises and different things that need to be done before we get to the census. So one of the first things that we are going to do is the Pre-census Listing and Mapping Exercise…It seeks to collect data on the number of households and persons residing in the various communities on Nevis and it also provides an update of the housing stock.
“You would realise that when we started 2010/2011 census and the 2020/2021 census that a number of new houses would have been built. So we need to capture the new houses that have been built and we need to know how many persons are right now residing on Nevis so that we can plan for the 2021 actual census,” she said.
For the pre-census exercise, each parish has been sub-divided into Enumeration Districts (EDs) and in accordance with the guidelines issued by CARICOM (Caribbean Community), each district should not exceed 100 households.
“That’s one of the first things we are checking in that the EDs that we presently have do not exceed 100 households and for those that have exceeded 100 households, with the help of the [Department of Physical Planning] we will have to change the boundaries of the EDs.
“So for each household there will be five simple questions and that is: Who is the head of the household? The contact number for the head of the household? The number of persons living in the household? How many persons living in the households are males and how many are females? And the address of the household,” Mrs. Phillip explained.
The Department of Statistics and Economic Planning Director urged the public to cooperate with the enumerators, and gave the assurance that all information received would be treated with confidentiality.
“I would just like to encourage the general public to work along with our enumerators when they come to your homes. It won’t take you more than two to three minutes to answer the five questions. They will be using tablets so once the information is in, it is private, it’s confidential and it would be kept in the strictest confidence.
“We will be using it to help us to go forward in planning Census 2021 because when it is census everybody should be counted; everybody matters. This is not a sample survey where we are just doing a part of the population but this is every person must be counted, and so we encourage all persons to please cooperate and help us to do the job we set out to do,” she said.
The enumerators conducting the survey will be identified by their name tags which will also bear the department’s logo.
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