CUPECOY, Sint Maarten – The Governor of St. Maarten, His Excellency drs. Eugene B. Holiday hosted the 8th annual Governor’s Symposium on Friday, June 21st.The event took place at the auditorium of the American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine in Cupecoy.
This year the theme of the event was ‘Shaping Sustainable Economic Recovery in the Caribbean – Challenges and Opportunities’. The symposium featured national, regional and international speakers who shared their views and ideas and at the same time, participated in an interactive panel discussion with the audience.
During this year’s event, several areas of interests were discussed including economic trends and characteristics, policy constraints and opportunities and strategic actions in the area of, among others, the environment, infrastructure, and economic sustainability in relation to current and future national development.
The overall objective of the Governor’s Symposium is the promotion of good governance. The annual Governors Symposium is considered to be a supportive platform for all invited stakeholders including government, civil society and the private sector – to focus, raise awareness and function as a catalyst for best practices within the community of Sint Maarten.
The keynote speaker for this year’s symposium was Caribbean economist, Dr. Marla Dukharan, who spoke of some of the many challenges that Caribbean face.
Speaking at the opening of the symposium on Friday, Governor drs Eugene Holiday told the audience, “according to the IMF country report, hurricanes Irma and Maria cost damages and loses on St. Maarten of some 2.7 billion US dollars.”
The Governor also told the gathering that the island’s economy was impacted in varying degrees by several major events, including the hurricane Luis in 1995, the 911 terrorist attacks in 2001, the 3rd oil crisis in 2008 and more recently, hurricane Irma in 2017.
