Commerce to review Pacific Gateway

The Commerce Department is poised to revive the aborted and much criticized Pacific Gateway project, saying it remains a very lucrative venture that the CNMI can engage in.

Commerce economic development analyst and press information officer Glenn Manglona said in an interview that the project would be initially implemented on Rota and Tinian.

“Pacific Gateway is a very good project. It’s unfortunate that it didn’t happen the first time, but we believe it has so much potential to bring the economy up,” said Manglona.

Former Northern Marianas College president Kenneth Wright formally espoused the Pacific Gateway project about two years ago to lure international students to enroll at the community college.

The project would make the CNMI as the education hub in the Pacific.

The project was allotted a $3.5-million federal grant money which was used as deposit to acquire the La Fiesta Shopping complex in San Roque which cost $7.5 million.

But due to its own financial mess, which resulted in accreditation warnings, NMC eventually dropped the project.

The college had also chosen to transfer the ownership of La Fiesta to the Governor’s Office, which authorized the release of the $3.5-million grant.

In a business gathering in May this year on Saipan, Office of Insular Affairs economist Wali Osman said a project like Pacific Gateway remains a viable program for the CNMI.

In his remarks during the Marianas Roundtable dinner reception Friday, Osman said that education is an area “that deserves serious consideration.”

He said there are also opportunities in telecommunication, film and movie making, health and wellness facilities and services.

“However, I think the area that deserves serious consideration is to think of making the CNMI, especially Saipan, a training center for this important region. By this, I mean what was known as the ‘Pacific Gateway.’ The initiative of the Northern Marianas College some time ago may open the path to a knowledge industry that, with careful nurturing, can develop into a major source of income for the Commonwealth,” said Osman.

He said that, as demand for American language and business education in East Asia rises, there is no doubt that there will be a greater demand for American-style education and training “that can be offered in a paradise-like setting.”

He said that because of the CNMI’s proximity to East Asian cities and other Asian countries, it “could become the training center of the region.”

He said that the market for higher education and instruction in English is quite large, especially in Asia, where 60 percent of the world’s population lives.

Osman said English would remain the dominant language in international business, noting that majority of the material transmitted over the Internet is in English, and that employers would prefer employees to be fluent in English.

A few years back, Osman, who served then as Bank of Hawaii’s senior fellow for the Pacific Economies at the East West Center, described higher education as a potential new industry that could rake in money for the Commonwealth.