The Departments of Civil Aviation and Maritime Administration are both set to become quangos this year, according to Shawn Crockwell.

Speaking with The Royal Gazette, the Minister of Tourism Development and Transport said the move was intended to make the departments — which control Bermuda’s ship and aircraft registries — more efficient and more capable of adapting to the market.

“Both of these registries can grow exponentially by not having the weight of a government, because it’s quite sluggish in making the adjustments necessary to meet the demands,” he said.

“By making them nimble, putting them into a quango so they can be somewhat autonomous in making their decisions, then they can grow these registries.

“We have been working on this since 2013. Our timeline is to have both of them up and running by April 1, and we are pretty confident that we are going to meet that timeline. It’s something we are quite excited about.

“They are going to grow, create more business opportunities and more revenue for the government.”

Quangos, such as the West End Development Corporation and the Bermuda Land Development Corporation, are financed by the Bermuda Government but operate independently.