Ian Rolle, GBPA-President (left) and Gary Gilbert, Chief Executive, Hutchison Port Holding Group(right) both make cheque donations to Peter Turnquest, President, Grand Bahama Chamber of Commerce (center).

Freeport, Bahamas –  The Grand Bahama Port Authority, Limited (GBPA) and the Hutchison Port Holding Group (HPH) both made generous cheque donations to the Grand Bahama Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday.

On hand for the presentations were GBPA-President, Ian Rolle, HPH Chief Executive, Gary Gilbert and Chamber President, Peter Turnquest.  The cheque donations will be used to fuel the Economic Development Plan, for Grand Bahama Island, that has been undertaken by the Chamber.

“Our goal is to create economic activity and I’m happy to say that this gesture indicates we’re not in this alone.  It’s wonderful for the island in that we have a number of forces joining together to create a positive thing for the island,” stated Rolle.

Gilbert concurred whilst highlighting the essential role the Chamber plays within our society.  “We think that the Chamber of Commerce is an extraordinarily important group here in Grand Bahama and we wanted to support them in every way because they bring business to our great city here,” he noted.

In recent weeks, GBPA had handed-over its own Economic Development Strategy to the Chamber’s Economic Development Committee so that both groups could marry their efforts.  Now with Tuesday’s cheque donations, the Chamber can proceed with an overall economic plan sooner than anticipated.

“This is very momentous.  Today’s donation signifies the unity of this community towards trying to create economic opportunities here in Grand Bahama,” Turnquest indicated. “Certainly, with the support of these two organizations we believe that the Chamber will be in a position to complete its mandate to help bring economic development to the island and to complete our study and the work we need to do in order to make that happen.”

Turnquest further expressed pleasure at the level of support the donation signified.  “Both GBPA and HPH are good corporate citizens and by partnering together, we are certainly able to do much more than anyone of us could do by ourselves," he added.