STDEII Seminar

In a joint press release with the French Development Agency (AFD), the Collectivité of Saint-Martin highlighted a long-term partnership supporting key projects in the territory. The new €12 million grant will bolster concrete initiatives for youth, the modernization of public infrastructure, resilience, and the transition. The Collectivité emphasized this crucial action for the territory during a seminar dedicated to the future Territorial Scheme for Economic Development, Innovation, and Internationalization (STDEII), which is designed to provide coherence, priorities, and methodology to the Collectivité's economic activities.

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A trusted partnership to support structuring investments

The Collectivité of Saint-Martin welcomes the presence of Mr. Gilles Chausse, AFD Regional Director, at the STDEII seminar and thanks the AFD for the quality of this long-term partnership. Strengthened since the post-Irma period, this working relationship combines financing, pre-financing of public subsidies, and technical engineering support, all working towards a more robust, transparent, and resilient development path for Saint-Martin.

The new support mobilized through a financial loan will secure and accelerate several key projects, totaling €12.2 million in pre-financing, including:

• The rehabilitation of the Sandy Ground Youth and Culture Center;

• The reconstruction of the 600 school in Quartier d'Orléans;

• The development of the RN7 in the Savane sector;

• The rehabilitation of a media library with a cyclone shelter in Concordia;

• The bio-environmental renovation of the fire station;

• The greening of school facilities.

These projects address concrete needs of the territory: youth, mobility, culture, civil protection, adaptation to climate change, and improvement of the living environment. They reflect a common ambition: to complete the reconstruction, modernize public facilities, and strengthen the resilience of Saint-Martin.

According to Alain RICHARDSON , Vice-President in charge of the Attractiveness, Economy and Employment delegation: " In Saint-Martin, a public facility project is also an economic development project as long as it improves the territory's capacity to train, move around, protect itself, invest and create value ."

Putting the economy back at the heart of territorial dynamics

Developing a territory economically means supporting businesses in their growth and also giving the territory the means to produce more value, jobs and solutions for its inhabitants, while strengthening its resilience.

In Saint-Martin, the issues related to water, energy, sanitation, mobility, public facilities, training, culture, civil security, planning and the ecological transition are not peripheral topics. They directly contribute to the conditions of competitiveness, attractiveness and cohesion of the territory.

In this perspective, the AFD appears as a close and trusted partner, not only to finance essential operations, but also to support the Collectivité on issues of planning, multi-year investment programming, project engineering, ecological and energy transitions, development and strengthening of territorial resilience.

A partnership to be part of a long-term vision: the launch of the STDEII seminar

The media coverage of this partnership opened the seminar dedicated to the future STDEII, organised by the Delegation for Attractiveness, Economy and Employment of the Collectivité of Saint-Martin, on 7 and 8 April 2026. The purpose of this working time was to transform the consultation into contributions directly useful to the future scheme, in order to provide Saint-Martin with a clear, focused and executable economic framework.

STDEII thus becomes the compass for the economic action of the Collectivité, by bringing together projects, priorities, funding, partnerships and public tools around a single vision of the territory.

The seminar should in particular make it possible to identify the priorities that will really be leveraged for Saint-Martin: structuring of value-creating sectors, modernization of the business environment, skills, financing, local economy, strategic land, structuring prerequisites, economic and fiscal data, governance and continuous consultation.

The shared objective is to arrive at an adoptable STDEII by autumn 2026, with an initial implementation roadmap and an interim assessment allowing for adjustments to the trajectories.

The same approach: finance, prioritize, manage

For the Collectivité of Saint-Martin, there is a clear common thread between the AFD partnership and the launch of the STDEII: placing the economy at the heart of territorial development, not in a narrow sense, but in a concrete, cross-cutting, and useful one. Anything that improves the territory's capacity to function, train, protect itself, move around, produce, cooperate, and attract investment is an integral part of its economic development.

The Collectivité of Saint-Martin intends to pursue, with the AFD and all its partners, this approach based on responsibility, methodology, coherence, and implementation. It reaffirms its commitment to relying on solid financial and technical partnerships to sustainably support the island's development ambitions.