GUALO RAI, Saipan — Michael Ada, secretary, and Sixto Igisomar, deputy secretary, both of the Department of Commerce, confirmed to the Journal that the Saipan Small Business Development Center is opening to assist small businesses to get federal backing for bank loans in the Northern Mariana Islands.
Ada told the Journal the SBDC office at the Department of Commerce is open for business. Resources and assistance will be made available by Gary A. Liddle, incoming-director.
Ada said it was while researching a grant that the department realized the NMI was the only jurisdiction without a small business center. “When I started to find out more about the project, I said ‘It makes no sense that we don’t have one,” said Ada.
The Department of Commerce executed a memorandum of agreement with the Pacific Islands Small Business Development Center Network in February. The revived SBDC is a collaborative project between the Department of Commerce, Commonwealth Development Authority, PISBDCN, and the U.S. Small Business Administration.
The department provides personnel and office space, CDA provides financial assistance for program operations and professional services, while the PISBDCN provides “a portion of the cash and equipment” through an SBA grant. “Eventually what we want to do is to bring the SBDC into a business incubator with the idea to have … SBDC downstairs and centrally locate CDA’s lending arm.” Ada said the Pacific Gardenia Hotel was intended to house such a unit.
Small businesses can now apply for a loan at FDIC-backed banks of up to $50,000.
Ada, who is also the NMI’s banking commissioner, said he is intending to meet soon with regional banking institutions to ensure banks begin approving such loans.
The NMI had an SBDC at the Northern Marianas College when NMC converted an abandoned hospital warehouse into a business incubator in 1989. In 1994, the SBDC came under the leadership of Jack Peters who later resigned and became director of the PISBDCN on Guam.
In 2000, SBA signed an agreement with CDA transferring SBDC to its Development Corporation Division. Despite this, NMC kept its own SBDC running with NMI Senate backing; however, it folded in 2006 as federal grants and other support dried up.
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