St. Maarten’s commissioner in charge of economic affairs, is clarifying an apparent mix-up which was at the core of an article published in the Today Newspaper of Wednesday, February 17.
The article in question mentioned that data on the government website, investsxm.com, is heavily outdated and how island council lady Maria Buncamper-Molanus stresses the importance of economic indicators.
According to the commissioner, however, the article is not only inaccurate but also incomplete.
The website currently used by the island government is stmaarteneconomy.com and not investinsxm.com. The information on the current website is up to date and all current economic indicators are posted on the site.
The website, stmaarteneconomy.com, was launched on March 20, 2008 and it is rather peculiar that council lady Buncamper-Molanus would be unaware of this, since she, as former commissioner had played an intricate role at the time that the site was being developed.
The site in question was refreshed and given a face lift in 2009 and re-launched on May 14, 2009.
The website investinsxm.com, referred to in the article, has been inactive for sometime.
Commissioner Richardson explained that the department of economic policy and research has been experiencing some of the same problems that the tourism bureau currently has with their old site.
In both cases, the island government did not own the domain name and neither was it controlled by the department in question.
The economic policy and research department has however rectified the situation with the developing of a new website. The island government now owns the domain name and has a higher level of control.
With the launch of the new government website, plan is to deactivate www.stmaarteneconomy.com, to avoid confusion.
The page dedicated to the sector Economy and Tourism will have all of the same features currently available on the stmaarteneconomy.gov website. These include publications, policies, legislation, comments and job applications.
Until a new integrated government site goes live, the department continues to update and keep the department website current.