~ Instead of a Person(s) of The Year, we at SXM TALKS have chosen an entity that we thought deserved to be selected as the "Person" of the Year, hence our Entity of the Year for 2021 is the Enterprise Support Project (ESP) managed by the National Recovery Program Bureau (NRPB) of St. Maarten ~
As part of the assistance provided by the Government of the Netherlands to the Government of St. Maarten (residents) after the passing of Hurricane Irma in 2017, the National Recovery Program Bureau (NRPB) was created.
In 2020, the NRPB launched the Enterprise Support Project (ESP), with a total of USD 35 million assigned in support funds. The ESP is a project of the St. Maarten Recovery and Resilience Trust Fund, which is financed by the Government of the Netherlands, managed by the World Bank and implemented by the NRPB on behalf of the Government of Sint Maarten.
This program permits small businesses on St. Maarten to apply for several assistance packages in which they can received up to US $150,000. One of these packages is the Asset and Repair package, which consists of a 65 percent grant and a 35 percent loan. As it was recently reported in the local press, since the program inception in August 2020, ESP has provided more than USD 7.3 million (!) in direct financing to over 100 small business on St. Maarten.
This program gave many small businesses in dire financial need an opportunity to survive during very difficult times and it provides the possibility to many new businesses, the opportunity to start operations. Many of the new businesses that were born out the availability of this funding will have not materialized otherwise.
Based on all the above the SXM TALKS team is very proud to select NRPB - ENTERPRISE SUPPORT PROGRAM as our 2021 Entity of the Year.
We hope that many more small businesses will have the opportunity to take advantage of this unique opportunity!
