The Saipan Chamber of Commerce has endorsed the passage of a proposed measure which will grant non-immigrant status to retirees from foreign countries willing to invest at least $150,000 in a move to spur economic activities in the Northern Marianas.<\/p>\n
In a letter to Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio, the Chamber said the bill would be beneficial to the interest of Northern Marianas since the setting up of a retirement community would lead to the establishment of medical and financial services. Such additional institutions would be beneficial to the CNMI business community, the Chamber said.<\/p>\n
The amount under the proposed measure was lower than the $200,000 passed by the Senate to reflect the currency crisis besetting the region. An age limit of at least 55 years old for any applicant who shall own not more than 10 percent of any local business and\/or be employed in the commonwealth.<\/p>\n
However, the Chamber wants a clarification whether the annual fee provided or the $1,000 application fee cover the already covers the five-year permit. An annual fee may be imposed to generate more revenues for the cash-strapped government.<\/p>\n
At the same time, the Chamber expressed concern on the slow bureaucratic process of the Department of Labor and Immigration’s policies. DOLI must be mandated either by regulation or by an executive directive to facilitate the processing of permits in the department.<\/p>\n
Rep. Oscar Babauta, chair of the House Commerce and Tourism Committee, said the proposed bill will improve the sagging real estate industry here since the lands would be leased by prospective investors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Saipan Chamber of Commerce has endorsed the passage of a proposed measure which will grant non-immigrant status to retirees from foreign countries willing to invest at least $150,000 in a move to spur economic activities in the Northern Marianas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45179","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}