by Clynt Ridgell, KUAM News Saturday, November 25, 2006 Subscribe to Clynt's newsfeed   E-mail this article Printable version KUAM Toolbar Web Widgets Get RSS headlines

Conducting business in the islands was the focus of a conference coordinated by the United States Department of the Interior. Hundreds took the opportunity to see what the insular areas have to offer, with the main goal being to try and stimulate an appetite amongst various companies to bring economic development to the island. Andy Jordanou is acting administrator for the Guam Economic Development and Commerce Authority, and tells KUAM News this year's Business Opportunity Conference was a thriving success.

"We had about 500 or 600 CDs that GEDCA presented for opportunities. We have submitted all of those we had a place that we designated and everybody that was involved basically took one. We had over 700 hundred people attended this conference," he explained.

Jordanou says that this conference is primarily for the insular islands and those insular areas that fall under the DOI's umbrella. The idea is to showcase the insular areas in attempts to entice various companies to invest in places like Guam. Representing the island was a contingent of about fifty-four people spearheaded by GEDCA in partnership with the Guam Chamber of Commerce. Jordanou says that their presentations focused on various areas of opportunity.

He said the first priority is business in the islands, describing, "How to structure opportunities within the confines of the islands financing, or you can also look at from the opportunity stand point what other opportunities we can look at for investment, companies who would like to do business on the island."

Jordanou says their main goal was to try and stimulate an appetite amongst various companies to bring economic development to the island, explaining, "The crux of the whole thing was 'How to Build Economic Opportunities for The Islands'. What we wanted to do was to indicate to the people there that although we have two strong pillars: the military and tourism. We do have some other diversified industries to entice people in the business here."

He told KUAM News hopes Guam will develop industries that will turn the territory into a center for arbitration and mediation, a regional distribution center, a regional recycling center, captive insurance, professional education and certification, and a regional venue for Asian film/video/commercials. Jordanou also pitched Guam's 600 acres of public land available for development under the Ancestral Lands Commission.