Maldives with cash to build 9 million dollars of Blockchain Hub to try to attract investors

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A Dubai -based family office has announced plans to invest $ 8.8 million to build a “blockchain and digital assets” financial center in Les Maldives, a scheme that the Indian Ocean Archipelago of the cash box hopes to help through a debt crisis.

The investment planned by the MBS Global Investments Family Office for five years would exceed the annual Maldives GDP of about $ 7 million, but Moosa Zameer, Minister of Finance, said that the country had to “make the leap” to diversify of tourism and fishing.

Zameer told The Financial Times in a video interview in the next two years that it took place in the next two years, which said that the agreement was “something we see as a possible collaborator to get us out of certain difficulties in which we are.”

MBS, who says he manages assets worth about $ 14 million, is the family office of a rich Qatari, Sheikh Nayef Bin Eid in Thani. It plans to finance the investment of Maldives playing its network of family offices and people with high net value to form a consortium.

MBS’s CEO, NADEEM HUSAIN, said that the phase project could be funded through equity and debt, and that firm commitments “in the north of” $ 4 million to $ 5 million had already been guaranteed.

“We have appreciated from the compensation of what was involved in terms of funding and made the necessary alliances and introduced the necessary members to ensure that we have it,” said Hussain. “It’s a lot of money.”

MBS and the Government of Maldives signed a joint company agreement on Sunday.

According to the Masterplan Project, the International Maldives Financial Center will be a center of 830,000 square meters capable of hosting 6,500 people and providing work to 16,000 in the capital Malé.

A “Financial Freezone for Blockchain and digital assets worldwide” would aim to triple Maldives GDP in four years and generate “much more than $ 1 billion revenue for fifth year,” said Masterplan.

The investment announced comes only months after India ran $ 760 million Presessendenda his So that the Maldives can avoid a possible sovereign defect.

In December, the Moody’s Qualification Agency said that “ Maldives ” external liquidity pressures continue to increase, giving substantial obligations of external debt ”, including $ 600-7 billion this year and around $ 2026, including a $ 500 million Sukuk, a form of debt that follows Islamic structures against interests.

Zameer acknowledged the role that India and China had “developing members” in their country, but said that the financial center agreement offered a new model.

“With MBS we enter business, it will be a totally different business from the traditional loans we make,” said the Minister of Finance.

The benefits of the archipelago include political stability, good connectivity and proximity to large markets such as India and Gulf countries. But an Indian senior businessman said that “it will not be easy” for Malé to become a regional financial center, mainly given the competition of established nuclei such as Dubai and Mauritius.