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Curacao’s Minister of Economic Development Abdul Nasser El Hakim (R) meets with former president of Brazil Luiz Lula da Silva

BRASILIA, Brazil -- Curacao’s Minister of Economic Development Abdul Nasser El Hakim met this week with former president of Brazil Luiz Lula da Silva in an effort to get Curacao taken off the Brazilian tax transparency blacklist.

For years, Curacao has been on the Brazilian blacklist of jurisdictions classified as tax havens and privileged tax regimes, meaning that Curacao has been unable to engage in business opportunities with Brazil, the largest economy in Latin America.

Hakim considers Curacao’s new status as country since October 10, 2010, as a great opportunity to remedy this issue.

“The removal of Curacao from the Brazilian blacklist is considered a high priority, as this will enable our international financial services sector to gain access to this big market, stimulating growth in the export of services and the attraction of Brazilian businesses and investments. Curacao has been waiting years for this breakthrough. Thousands of highly skilled jobs depend on this,” he said.

The minister has therefore assembled a commission, with members from the Ministry of Economic Development, Ministry of Finance and CIFA to pursue the removal of Curacao from the blacklist. This has, however, proven to be challenging and has up to now progressed slowly on a technical level while the commission is still in communication with the Brazilian federal tax authorities in this regard.

To speed up the removal of Curacao from the blacklist, Hakim decided to pursue a political approach through former president Lula, a highly influential Brazilian leader that Hakim knows personally, in order for him to exert his political influence to facilitate resolving the blacklisting issue swiftly.

Hakim and Lula met in a private setting where the minister elaborated on the compliance of Curacao in order to be removed from the list.

Lula promised to take this matter up with the relevant authorities in order to reach a conclusion favourable to Curacao as soon as possible.

Republished with permission of the Curacao Chronicle

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