31 July 2020
- Sustainable Economic Development Plan end-of-year report 2019-20 published
- Agricultural Proposal and Training Proposal presented to ESH Board and increased activity relating to Social Enterprise grants
- ENR&P to undertake further discussion with fishing stakeholders on fishing catch limits table
The monthly meeting of the Economic Development Committee (EDC) took place on Thursday, 23 July 2020, and the following is a summary of the main items discussed:
The Chief Economist gave an update on progress against St Helena’s Sustainable Economic Development Plan (SEDP). The end-of-year report for 2019-2020 included information related to the state of the economy and progress with respect to investment, imports and exports, tourism, incomes, infrastructure development, and banking. The full report can be found on the Public Information, Reports and Policies page of the SHG website: https://www.sainthelena.gov.sh/government/public-information/.
Enterprise Saint Helena (ESH) presented an overview of their progress and performance as at the end of June. Particular mention was made in respect of the continuation of COVID-19 support to the business community, and the recent workshop held with the business community regarding a Tourism Recovery Strategy (Post COVID-19), which attracted 70+ attendees. It was noted that an Agricultural Proposal and a Training Proposal had been presented to the ESH Board at the last regular meeting, and also that there had been increased activity relating to Social Enterprise grants over the past month. As part of her Quarterly update to EDC, the Director of Tourism invited the ESH Digital Development Manager to give a presentation on how the Tourism website is being upgraded, and what this means in terms of collaboration with the Island’s Tourism sector in order to ensure that maximum exposure is being achieved.
During the latter part of 2019, Internal Audit carried out a Governance Review of the five Council Committees as part of the Internal Audit Work Plan approved by the Audit and Risk Committee. EDC noted the Internal Audit Report and progress on implementation of the various recommendations, which were mainly on target. EDC also asked for a further amendment to the Council Committees (Rules of Procedure) Order, for papers to be circulated to the committee at least five working days before a meeting.
Under Matters Arising, the Director of Environment, Natural Resources & Planning (ENR&P) provided an update on the proposal for further work on the fishing catch limits table and advised that as agreed by the Committee at their last meeting, ENR&P will be undertaking further discussion with fishing stakeholders towards achieving a revised version of the table.
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SHG
31 July 2020