2022 October 27 – The Board of Directors for the Pacific Islands Development Bank (PIDB) will hold their first in-person meeting in Saipan, CNMI after three years of conducting Board business through virtual meeting platform. PIDB’s President & CEO holds the role of Chairperson for the Board of Directors and proposed to hold their first in-person meeting of the Board this month in Saipan following the CNMI’s injection of an additional one million dollars in share capital in August of this year.

In this first in-person meeting, the Board of Directors will recognize the previous Chairman of the Board of Governors, Honorable Ralph DLG. Torres, Governor of the CNMI, and the current Chairman of the Board of Governors, Honorable Kenneth A. Kedi, Speaker of the Nitijela (Parliament) of the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Speaker Kedi was elected to serve as the new Chairman of the Board of Governors of PIDB in their virtual meeting last month on September 13, 2022.

Governor Ralph Torres held the Chairmanship on the Board of Governors for more than three years following the last in-person meeting of the PIDB Board of Governors held in Palau in January 2019. The pandemic and related border closures across the region prohibited much of the Board’s activity and the conduct of regular Board business these recent years. “This meeting in Saipan will give the members of our Board of Directors, management and staff of the bank the opportunity to express appreciation to Governor Torres for his efforts in support of PIDB and our mission in the region, particularly for initiating the first substantial capital infusion from shareholder members since pre-pandemic,” said Ms. Lindsay M. Timarong, President & CEO of PIDB. Incidentally, the last substantial capital infusion was made by the Republic of the Marshall Islands, including the Kwajelain Atoll Development Authority (KADA), both of which have committed to injecting additional share capital funds in the months immediately before and since The Nitijela’s Hon. Speaker Kenneth Kedi was elected Chairman of the PIDB Board of Governors. A delegation representing the Republic of the Marshall Islands, including Speaker Kedi and Minister of Finance Brenson Wase, have been invited to Saipan as honored guests attending the PIDB Board of Directors meeting.

Hon. Kenneth Kedi is presently serving his second term as Speaker of the Nitijela and is a former President of the Association of Pacific Islands Legislatures (APIL), having led the Association during its 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 terms. The APIL developed the concept of a regional development finance institution and established PIDB in 1989. Speaker Kedi has been very supportive of the bank’s mission, and under his leadership and representation on the PIDB Board of Governors, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, including KADA as an Associate Member Shareholder, collectively has infused close to three million dollars in capital contributions into PIDB since inception. “We are humbly grateful for Speaker Kedi and the Marshall Islands representatives on our Board of Governors and Board of Directors’ willingness to join our first in-person meeting. Relative to pre-pandemic years, there have been virtually no opportunities to pay courtesy visits to our institutional leaders or to have them personally interact with our team and Board Directors. With borders reopened across the Micronesian region, we welcome this first of many such meeting occasions and we thank Governor Torres and the CNMI representatives on the PIDB Board of Governors and Board of Directors for the warm welcome and hospitality,” said President/CEO Timarong.

The PIDB is a regional bank established by the Association of Pacific Islands Legislatures (APIL) in July of 1989. The bank’s mission is to contribute to the acceleration of economic and social development of member states and nations, individually and collectively, and to promote economic cooperation among them. PIDB shareholder member governments include: The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands; the FSM States of Yap, Kosrae, Pohnpei, and Chuuk; the U.S. Territory of Guam; the Republic of Palau; and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. The Kwajalein Atoll Development Authority (KADA) is an Associate Member shareholder. PIDB offers commercial loans and residential loans to citizens of the bank’s shareholder member countries and territories. For instance, here in the CNMI, they have begun offering small business loans of up to $100,000 at fixed interest rates as low as 6% (for those who qualify), and no more than 10%, to entrepreneurs involved in the value-added production chain, women-owned enterprises, agriculture/aquaculture projects with potential for import substitution and/or regional export markets, or commercial property improvements. Visit www.pacificidb.com for loan and bank contact information.