ST JOHN’S, An­tigua – Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) is hop­ing that the re­de­vel­oped Coolidge Crick­et Ground (CCG) in An­tigua can at­tract long-term, strate­gic in­vest­ment.

Speak­ing dur­ing the 25th An­nu­al Cit­i­zen­ship by In­vest­ment and In­vest­ment Mi­gra­tion Con­fer­ence (CIS25), which con­clud­ed in An­tigua last week, CWI’s chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Chris Dehring ex­plained that the new look CCG was en­vi­sioned as a vi­brant, mul­ti-use com­plex that could be used to merge sport, cul­ture, en­ter­tain­ment, and in­no­va­tion.

He said CWI was ac­tive­ly ex­plor­ing how this project can be en­hanced by the re­gion’s Cit­i­zen­ship by In­vest­ment (CBI) frame­work to at­tract in­vestors.

“Our aim is to turn Coolidge in­to more than a crick­et venue – we see it as a dy­nam­ic, mul­ti-use de­vel­op­ment hub that brings to­geth­er sport, cul­ture, and com­merce.

“With the right part­ner­ships, this project can be a blue­print for how sport can dri­ve mean­ing­ful in­vest­ment,” Dehring said.

“In ad­di­tion, every year we broad­cast crick­et from the re­gion to mil­lions of view­ers world­wide, many of whom the CBI pro­gramme could be of in­ter­est.”

The con­fer­ence con­vened glob­al in­vestors, pol­i­cy­mak­ers, and de­vel­op­ment lead­ers, in­clud­ing the Ho­n­ourable Gas­ton Browne, Prime Min­is­ter of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Ho­n­ourable Philip J. Pierre, Prime Min­is­ter of Saint Lu­cia; the Ho­n­ourable Roo­sevelt Sker­rit, Prime Min­is­ter of Do­mini­ca; and the Ho­n­ourable Dick­on Mitchell, Prime Min­is­ter of Grena­da.

Dr Shal­low and Dehring, along with chair­man of the CCG, Ricky Sker­ritt, and gen­er­al man­ag­er Nele­cia Yeates, com­plet­ed the CWI del­e­ga­tion at the con­fer­ence.

Dur­ing the con­fer­ence, CWI pre­sent­ed its evolv­ing vi­sion for crick­et as a cat­a­lyst for sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth across the Caribbean.

Dehring al­so par­tic­i­pat­ed in a high-lev­el pan­el dis­cus­sion on sport and sus­tain­able in­vest­ment, where he shared in­sights in­to crick­et’s glob­al com­mer­cial growth and the crit­i­cal role of re­gion­al in­fra­struc­ture.

“Crick­et has al­ways been more than just a game in the Caribbean – it’s an iden­ti­ty, a brand and a glob­al as­set.

“But now it rep­re­sents al­so a sig­nif­i­cant plat­form to at­tract re­gion­al in­vest­ment where there is un­tapped po­ten­tial, es­pe­cial­ly in East Asian and North Amer­i­can mar­kets where there is vi­brant in­ter­est in the sport,” Dehring point­ed out.

“By en­gag­ing high net worth fans more de­lib­er­ate­ly through crick­et, we can at­tract cap­i­tal that not on­ly en­hances our crick­et­ing in­fra­struc­ture but al­so dri­ves broad­er eco­nom­ic growth.”

Mean­while, Dr Shal­low main­tained that at­tract­ing in­vest­ment was crit­i­cal to the sport’s de­vel­op­ment in the re­gion.

“The Cit­i­zen­ship by In­vest­ment pro­gramme of­fers a valu­able path­way for at­tract­ing mean­ing­ful in­vest­ment in­to crick­et and oth­er ar­eas of re­gion­al de­vel­op­ment. It pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­nect glob­al cap­i­tal with our am­bi­tions to grow the game and strength­en the Caribbean’s eco­nom­ic land­scape.

“The lev­el of en­gage­ment from re­gion­al lead­ers at CIS25 re­flects a shared com­mit­ment to progress. With this kind of uni­fied in­ter­est, we can con­sol­i­date our ef­forts and cre­ate greater eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties for all Caribbean peo­ple,” Dr Shal­low added. (CMC)