Antilles close with negative balance of 1 billion

October 10, 2010 12:36 PM

The estate of the Netherlands Antilles is currently negative, but expectations are that with the Dutch debt reconstruction there will finally be a positive result.

Alberto ‘Chos’ Romero, chairman of the Committee Division of the Estate declared this yesterday during a meeting of the Central Committee of the Parliament.

The estate balance of the Antilles per December 31st 2008 amounts to 1,048 billion guilders.
Romero commented yesterday on the closing entry of the Antilles. He remarked that the debt reconstruction was not included in the balance yet. This will be included only as of 2009. Including the debt reconstruction by the Netherlands, the balance of the Antilles will work out positively.
Romero estimated this could turn out to even more than 1 billion (positive). “In that case, we need not divide debts but assets.” The current calculation is based on the period up to December 31st 2008. The figures up to and including October 9th this year will be charted during the coming period.

For the division of the Antillean estate, one will maintain a division calculated on the basis of the population figure and the share of the islands involved in the Gross National Product (BBP) of the Netherlands Antilles. This calculation departs from the fact that Curaçao will receive 73.3 percent of the estate, St. Maarten 18.75 percent and the Netherlands on behalf of the BES-Islands 7.95 percent. For the BES-islands, the division has been determined at 5.75 for Bonaire, 1.5 for St. Eustatius and 0.7 percent for Saba.

Executor
A settlement committee in formation will perform the settling of the division of the estate. The Netherlands, on behalf of the BES-Islands, and the new countries in the Kingdom – Curaçao and St. Maarten – will be seated in this committee. During yesterday’s meeting, there were many questions from Parliament members about the executor and why the division of the estate was not determined by national regulation.This was promised to Parliament, and this means that the national parliament would have to approve such as well. However, Minister of Finance Ersilia de Lannooy announced yesterday there were numerous reasons why this would not be arranged by means of a national regulation. Firstly, it was agreed between the successors of the Netherlands Antilles, namely Curaçao, St. Maarten and the Netherlands on behalf of the BES-islands, that the division of the estate would take place via two mutual regulations. The Minister emphasized yesterday that the country was not involved with this agreement. Also due to lack of time, the country did not get around to the national regulation so that it was decided to maintain a national decision now instead.

7 October 2010