THE HAGUE - The Dutch government says that it has been agreed in the coalition agreement that the National Growth Fund will be open to applications from all over the Kingdom. But because of the complexity, it is not yet clear what that will look like.
The current bill is only aimed at the country of the Netherlands, including Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba, but The Hague promises that it will work out in the coming months how the opening of the National Growth Fund can be realized for the entire Kingdom.
With the National Growth Fund, the Dutch cabinet is allocating twenty billion over the next five years for projects that invest in targeted investments in the field of knowledge and research development and innovation.
30 million
The Council of State previously advised that the investment limit of thirty million euros that applies to projects in the growth fund should be set up differently for the islands. The small scale of the local economies makes it unlikely that the public entities will be able to submit investment proposals of sufficient volume.
The Dutch government does not intend to do so for the time being, because it believes that proposals from the islands can be linked to projects in the European Netherlands.
However, according to the Council of State, the nature of the challenges in the Caribbean Netherlands differs significantly from those in the European Netherlands, so investment proposals to strengthen earning capacity in the European Netherlands are not expected to match the scale of investment needs in the Caribbean Netherlands. The CDA party now wants feedback on this from the minister.
Counter
The members of the CDA faction have also asked the Dutch government what it thinks about opening a counter for relatively small Growth Fund projects in the Caribbean Netherlands.
The government promises that it will keep an eye on making the National Growth Fund accessible for the Kingdom in a timely manner so that the entire Kingdom can make a claim. It remains to be seen whether that counter will be there.