The Bahamas and the Chinese government are no strangers when it comes to negotiations, not when you consider Baha Mar – but that doesn’t mean everyone’s pleased with the two doing business. 

Still, Sir Baltron Bethel, the country’s first Director General of Tourism and  more recently, a senior advisor to the government  said China is not trying to take over The Bahamas, and that role it’s going to play in the world will not be determined by The Bahamas, but by the superpowers. 

All in all, he agreed with Chinese investments for the benefit of Bahamians.

“One of the great concerns about Chinese investment has been the policy in which the Chinese with their capital, they also want to bring Chinese labour, and that can be an inhibiting factor,” said Sir Baltron.

“But you’ve got to reckon with this that in order to access capital,  that you might sometimes have to concede to allow more Chinese labour than you would normally do. 

“At the same time, you’ve got to take a very firm stand with the Chinese, with regards to those formulas, and that we did. 

“We got them to reduce the formulas from the original formulas  that were on the Baha Mar project, in the previous administration and of course they have also improved on some of the original terms; so it’s a continuing process in working with them,” he said.

Sir Baltron added that the country could be losing opportunities. 

“And then there’s a matter of competition, if The Bahamas doesn’t do business with China, the rest of the region does business with China, the Americas do business with China, so The Bahamas could be losing opportunities, if we become xenophobic.”

Sir Baltron also expressed serious concern with dealing with the Chinese to ensure that they do no put in a labour component which is unmanageable.