The Bhutanese Leading the way.
His Majesty The King, as the Executive Chairperson of the Gelephu Mindfulness City (GMC) Board, granted the ‘GMC Law No. 1 of 2024’ at the Machhen Lhakhang of Punakha Dzong, in accordance with the tradition of seeking blessings from the nation’s most sacred shrine for significant national undertakings on 26th December.
GMC Law No. 1 of 2024, or the Application of Laws Act 2024, builds on the GMC Royal Charter granted on 10 February 2024.
This landmark legislation provides the governance framework for the Special Administrative Region (GMC SAR), reinforcing its autonomy and capacity to drive economic development. The new law integrates Singapore’s common law and Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) regulations to govern company incorporation, employment, taxation, and financial services in GMC.
This framework ensures efficient legal processes for businesses and individuals seeking to operate in the region.
A source said the GMC Law No. 1 of 2024 provides the legal underpinning for the business and financial regulatory framework. He said that the Singapore Common Law provides a lot of familiarity to investors and is also a high standard international best practice.
The ADGM is more focused on financial regulations and apart from being up to date and comprehensive it also has strong regulations around digital assets etc.
Things have been moving fast in the GMC front with the announcement of the first founding member Ming Z. Mei a Co-Founder and CEO of GLP, on 12th December, BIG as the first international company to register in the GMC on 16th December, Matrix port, a leading all-in-one crypto financial services platform, announcing its intention to apply to the Gelephu Mindfulness City Authority (GMCA) for a Financial Services Permission License to carry out regulated activities in relation to Virtual Assets in GMC on 18th December and now Law No 1.
The source said that more announcements will be coming up in 2025 with more agreements, founders program members, setting up of offices in GMC, MoUs etc.
This is as more international companies and partners are interested in all 7 focus sectors of GMC like Spiritual, Health and Wellness, Education and Knowledge, Agriculture-Tech and Forestry, Green Energy and Tech, Finance and Digital Assets and Aviation and Logistics.
According to the source, from the day of the announcement of the GMC in 17th December 2023 till date should be looked at as the first year and here the focus was on planning things properly and not rushing into anything too fast. The aim was doing properly planning and due diligence including the BIG urban masterplan being completed.
GMC will undergo three phases of development of around 7 years each.
The focus will be on building both the hardware and software. The hardware will be infrastructure like roads, airport, digital connectivity etc. and software will be laws, taxation policies, governance etc. as seen in Law 1 above.
With a new CEO and Governor in place the CEO and the Governor are putting in structures and building their teams. The management team as seen during the Bhutan Innovation Forum already has domain experts in legal, education and healthcare, finance etc.
The 7 sectors are at various stages and tourism will be a cross-cutting theme like medical tourists, spirituality, well-being etc.
Cooperation agreements will be on a case-by-case basis and there will be enabler structures too.
Year two of the first phase will involve continuing setting up of the software and hardware. The Governor will be based more in Gelephu and on the ground and will deal with matters more related to the physical location and implementation, while the CEO will be focused in terms of bringing in investments, technical expertise etc.
The source said that there is very strong level of interest in the GMC and this was apparent from His Majesty’s visits abroad where GMC received positive interest from companies and others and they are interested in investing in GMC.
The GMC team has been given a large list of contacts and it is their job to convert these contacts and interests into investments or partnerships. These contacts are from His Majesty’s visits, companies approaching them, the private sector sending people their way and also the massive contacts of the board and management team themselves.
While getting in touch with the contacts the focus is more on a light touch approach.
While the interest is high the GMC team also does not want to rush in and give away certain commitments which can set precedents. The focus is to design the proper legal structures.
The management team have their places in Thimphu but also keep moving out for GMC work and have offices in Singapore too.
