Saipan Mayor David M. Apatang supports a bill authorizing the Commonwealth Ports Authority to separate independent master concessions for Saipan, Tinian, and Rota.<\/p>\n
Senate Bill 19-48, authored by Senate President Victor Hocog (Ind-Rota), proposes to authorize CPA to grant separate master concession agreements for the airports and seaports of each island. This would allow each port of entry on all three islands to have its own separate concession.<\/p>\n
Hocog\u2019s bill amends Public Law 4-60 that was enacted in 1985. It states that \u201calthough previous master concession agreement and current successive master concession agreement provides that DFS [Duty Free Saipan] has exclusive concession privileges at all points of entries in the CNMI\u2026DFS Saipan has only operated stores at the Saipan International Airport.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDFS Saipan has not exercised its exclusive privileges at the Tinian and Rota international airports partially due to the low retail demand, low passenger traffic, and unstable air service at each airport, respectively,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n
The passage of the bill opens the door to possible investors that want to set up duty-free stores on the other two islands.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think such legislative finding is observational and typical,\u201d Apatang said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough the idea of authorizing the CPA to make opportunities available to more than one company to operate a concession at the port of Rota and Tinian independently\u2014any company that is unrelated to the master concessionaire currently operating at the port in Saipan\u2014we believe it will not immediately translate into a tangible undertaking,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Apatang explained that factors such as operating cost, shipping cost, consumer preferences, and number of travelers will always influence any business decision whether to operate a concession on Rota and Tinian.<\/p>\n
\u201cA for-profit company\u2019s sole purpose is to profit and stay in business for as long as the business climate is favorable to its long-term survival. For any concessionaire at the ports of Rota and Tinian to remain in operation once they start, the CPA and government must partner with them to assure they stay in business,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
CPA board member Barrie Toves said that they already have an interested investor that wants to do a master concession on Tinian; however, PL 4-60 prohibits splitting the master concession.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are monitoring the bill so we could sit down and negotiate,\u201d Toves told reporters after a recent board meeting.<\/p>\n
Toves noted that Mega Stars was the interested investor for a master concession on Tinian and that the CPA board supports the passage of the bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saipan Mayor David M. Apatang supports a bill authorizing the Commonwealth Ports Authority to separate…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[56,124,257,1275],"class_list":["post-211635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-business-3","tag-cpa","tag-nmi","tag-public-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211635\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}