Central Bank statutes on one per cent fee will be adjusted

October 09, 2013 9:10 AM
PHILIPSBURG -- Adjustments need to be made to the statutes of the Central Bank of Curaçao and St. Maarten to change the structure of the one per cent foreign exchange licence tax (commonly called a fee) for the countries to conform with Article 53 of the Overseas Countries and Territories LGO Decree to which they are signatories.
 
The adjustments have to be made by January, when the decree comes into effect. Both governments have received the proposal for the adjustments by the Central Bank. They have to agree to the adjustments. The adjustments have to be approved by the two Parliaments.
 
Central Bank President Emsley Tromp explained in a meeting of the Central Committee Parliament on Tuesday that one issue related to the adjustment that has not been resolved is the sharing of the fee between the two countries.
The adjustment would mean that instead of the current arrangement of 30 per cent for St. Maarten and 70 per cent for Curaçao, the division would have to be based on the share equity of the two countries. In this case, St. Maarten will have claim to only 21 per cent of the bank's profits and Curaçao 79 per cent. A solution suitable for both countries needs to be found.
 
The LGO Decree regulates preferential access to the market of the European Union for overseas countries and territories of European countries. Article 58 stipulates that there may be no impediments to payments between the LGOs and the European Union.
 
The licence tax in its current setup may be considered a limitation and an impediment to trade, Tromp said.
To remedy the situation, the Central Bank has proposed to both governments an amendment to Article 9 of the Central Bank Statute by eliminating paragraph six. That paragraph states that the collected licence fees are not part of the Central Bank's revenues.
 
Also proposed is the elimination of paragraph seven that states: the licence fee collected in a country is fully transferred to that country.
 
Further, Article 40 of the Central Bank Statute has to be amended to state that the profit related to the licence fee will be distributed pro rata between the countries.
 
Unrelated to the decree, the Central Bank also is looking into another source of revenue: the possibility of levying a banking licence fee on commercial banks, as is done on other Caribbean islands.

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