WILLEMSTAD – The Minister of Economic Development, Eugene Rhuggenaath will put an end to the moratorium on permits for Chinese mini markets. “We will revoke the measure taken by the former Minister of Development, Stanley Palm,” according to Rhuggenaath.

Rhuggenaath believes that the measure was discriminatory and against the basic principles of free enterprise.

In 2014 former Minister Palm announced that during a year there will be a moratorium on petitions for permits on Chinese mini markets. In his concept there were too many of these stores. The Minister back then thought that this development should stop.

The organization of supermarkets was for this measure seeing the unfair competition. The Chamber of Commerce on the other hand was against and argued that it’s the market that needs to decide whether there are too many of these stores.

Minister Rhuggenaath declared that he’s against this moratorium. He also said that if there is a problem with the number of stores, the government has the tools to keep this under control. But the moratorium, the way it is worded, is discriminatory.

When Palm announced this moratorium, a member of the Chinese society in Curaçao called it discriminatory, but nothing has been done to it. A possibility was to go to court, but that was not done.

Bron: CuracaoChronicle