‘Saipan casino is the only solution’

The only solution for the economic problem that the CNMI is experiencing now is establishing a casino industry on Saipan, according to former Governor Froilan Tenorio.

“No other industry can revive, turnaround our economy other than casino,” said Tenorio in an interview with Saipan Tribune.

The former governor underscored the need to revive the tourism industry, which he said is really CNMI’s only industry.

“You know the garment industry is just supplementing what the revenues that tourism is bringing in. We cannot survive without tourism. We can survive without the garment industry,” he pointed out.

In order for the Commonwealth to get the economy moving again, Tenorio said, the government must diversify the tourism industry.

“We got to bring in the tourists…the wealthy tourists. The tourists with money to spend. In my opinion right now most of the tourists that we are getting are the low-income tourists. Of course we welcome them all the time. But we need to attract the tourists with money. Those are the gamblers,” he said.

On the closures of many garment factories, the former chief executive said “it is inevitable.’

“Did somebody mention during the campaign that there will be shoe factories over here? Never! There will never be a shoe factory here because it is very expensive,” Tenorio said.

He also cited that it is also inevitable that the minimum wage will have to be increased.

“Any increase of the minimum wage, even without increase we just can’t compete with the other countries now in the garment industry. We all know that the minimum wage will have to be increased. It will happen not this year, but definitely next year,” he said.

All of these garment factories, Tenorio said, will just have to close down.

“I can’t see them paying $4 or $5 an hour and compete with Vietnam, China, and elsewhere where they are paying their workers 50 cents an hour. No way,” he said.

“So the only thing that we can do right now is to get our tourism industry going again. And the only way to do it is [with the] casino,” he added.

Tenorio, however, stated that the people of Tinian think that if there will be casino on Saipan it will hurt their industry.

“No way! It’s going to help the casinos on Tinian if we have casinos on Saipan,” he emphasized.

Asked about how many casinos are possibly needed on Saipan, the former governor responded he can’t think of numbers “because I can’t even think of this Legislature passing a casino bill.”