{"id":389301,"date":"2023-04-12T06:01:30","date_gmt":"2023-04-11T20:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=389301"},"modified":"2023-04-12T06:01:30","modified_gmt":"2023-04-11T20:01:30","slug":"cbma-military-has-a-lot-of-residual-income","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/cbma-military-has-a-lot-of-residual-income\/","title":{"rendered":"CBMA: Military has a lot of residual income"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Commonwealth Bureau of Military Affairs special assistant Daniel Aquino served as one of the guest speakers of the Saipan Chamber of Commerce\u2019s monthly meeting last Wednesday at the Crowne Plaza Resort Saipan.\u00a0(MARK RABAGO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While the military market won\u2019t be enough to compensate for the loss of Chinese tourists, the Commonwealth Bureau of Military Affairs believes military personnel visiting the islands\u2014be it for training or rest and recreation\u2014will contribute a lot to the local economy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that the governor has mentioned his pivot away from the Chinese market. But it\u2019s not totally abandoning the Chinese market, but it\u2019s just that we\u2019re emphasizing the military because the military has a lot of residual income,\u201d said CBMA special assistant Daniel Aquino during his presentation last Wednesday at the Saipan Chamber of Commerce monthly meeting at the Crowne Plaza Resort Saipan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Aquino, who himself is a military veteran and used to run the CNMI Museum, added that local businesses stand to benefit a lot from the CBMA and Joint Region Marianas\u2019 Morale, Welfare, and Recreation Quality of Life program.<\/p>\n

MWR gives local businesses a chance to partner with JRM to sell its products and services to military personnel in Guam.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Especially] when we have our ships coming in. These guys have been on sea for months, so they\u2019re looking for places to spend their money. So part of the MWR program is for these vacation packages to happen on Saipan. And that\u2019s why I\u2019m advising every one of you guys: You have to market your business. I cannot promise that every one of your businesses are going to benefit economically, it\u2019s how you sell your business,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Aquino went on to enjoin Chamber members to register their businesses with the CBMA so they can immediately pass it on to JRM in time for the upcoming Innovative Readiness Training from July 9 to 22.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the ways we can do this is if you register in our office so we can provide a list as a heads up with a JRM. We\u2019ve already had businesses that we\u2019ve been reaching out to as part of the list. The list includes businesses like food, restaurants, entertainment, and stuff like that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Aquino added that the Chamber should work closely with CBMA so both local businesses and the military could come up with win-win solutions when it comes to their needs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think what I\u2019ll do from now on is that if there\u2019s any wants or needs from the military, we\u2019ll give it to the Chamber of Commerce. So any businesses that have warehouses and businesses that sell unique stuff, we can channel that into every U.S. Department of Defense component.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Aquino also shared to Chamber members that military personnel almost exclusively use credit cards for their purchases and encourages businesses that don\u2019t have credit card machines to acquire them.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom what I\u2019ve gathered is that they operate through their cards. They use their cards for purchases. I\u2019m not here to tell you how to run your business. I\u2019m not here to tell you how to market your business. The only thing that matters is the military\u2019s requirements as far as spending and one of the main things that they utilize are [credit] cards\u2026And like I said, in the military they only use their cards. So go to the bank and don\u2019t come to my office and ask for a credit card machine.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He added that PayPal is an alternative for credit card machines and businesses like Angry Penne, one of his favorites, has that option available for military personnel.<\/p>\n

Micronesian Environmental Services\u2019 John Gourley, however, said getting credit cards may not be a good option for small businesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cBottomline is it\u2019s not worth it if you only have purchases come in three times a year or four times a year\u2026Credit card machines are great for companies that are selling food items, but for items that are not sold as often there is a problem of getting expensive [credit card machine],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The CBMA special assistant also said companies that want to secure contracts with the military should register under the System for Awards Management.<\/p>\n

SAMS is a government website where businesses can register if they want to do business with the U.S. government. Those who want to apply for a federal grant or federal assistance must register with SAMs otherwise their business entity is deemed unofficial and not business worthy with the federal government.<\/p>\n

Aside from the IRT three months from now, Aquino envisions a slew of other military activities set in the CNMI.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve already submitted applications to the U.S. Navy when it comes to requests for more port visits. More training exercises are also happening north of Saipan in Marpi.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

As a parting note, Aquino asked the community to cut the military some slack and through the CBMA, he would like to help grow the economy by cultivating a stronger relationship between the U.S. Armed Forces and civilians.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo let me just say this first. I know that there\u2019s a lot of reservations about the military. When someone hears about the military, they think \u2018oh, we\u2019re gonna bomb the crap out of Pagan. That\u2019s not true. The military has already stopped pursuing that issue. What we\u2019re trying to do now is to try to facilitate. The governor and the lieutenant governor are more concerned about the economy. And how we\u2019re trying to pursue this is through staycation packages. That was one of the meetings that we had with [the Marianas Visitors Authority] to try to provide some of the costs for the military to come here.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While the military market won\u2019t be enough to compensate for the loss of Chinese tourists,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":389302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-389301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389301","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\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}