Opinion

I know I promised an article on volumetrics this month, but following recent discussions on Dart’s proposal to build a skyscraper tower, I thought I would look at this subject (in the meantime we are busy gathering information for an article on volumetrics next month). The tower proposed will be similar perhaps to the 160-storey Burj Khalifa in Dubai or the former 104-storey World Trade Centre in New York. Plans to create a new skyline for Grand Cayman recognisable the world over were first unveiled by Premier McLaughlin at this year’s Cayman Economic Outlook conference, and have been the subject of a lot of discussion ever since, including at the Chamber of Commerce’s Economic Outlook event.

The issue of economic substance is not a new one for the Cayman Islands, as the subject was much talked about some years ago and this was a motivating factor in the development of the Cayman Enterprise City project. As a result, Cayman passed its Cayman’s Special Economic Zones Law in 2011. Businesses located within CEC have been growing steadily in numbers since it first opened its doors to the likes of technology, media, intellectual property, shipping, aviation, commodities and derivatives trading businesses that wanted to establish a physical presence in a tax-neutral jurisdiction such as ours while meeting globally recognised economic substance requirements.