Puerto Rico is open for business. So declared leaders from the devastated island on February 15 at an investors’ conference convened to explore the opportunities generated by what was described as “the greatest disaster in US modern history.” The event, in New York City, was organized by the Financial Times and Puerto Rico’s Department of Economic Development and Commerce, and it featured Governor Ricardo Rosselló Nevares and several members of his cabinet, who addressed a room of corporate investors eager to learn about the role they could play in Puerto Rico’s economic future.

With sleek PowerPoint presentations and relentless optimism, government figures described the post-hurricane context not as a humanitarian crisis but as a chance for a “restart,” declaring almost giddily that they could now accomplish in just a few years what would have otherwise taken a decade. Continue Reading>>>