Aug 05 A small Caribbean nation helped popularize 'citizenship by investment' - now it's counting on it to make up for lost tourism
St. Kitts and Nevis, like many of its Caribbean peers, is highly dependent on tourism revenue.
But with its borders still closed to foreigners, the small country's pioneering "citizenship by investment" program could prove even more important than it has been in the past three decades.
Usually, revenue from wealthy foreigners shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars for a second passport from the island accounts for 30% of the GDP gap in the government's budget, according to the CBI program head Les Khan. This year, he says, that could be much higher.
"Now that tourism is at a standstill," he said in an interview, "we expect that the CBI program will be a main driver for the next six months."
Around the world, secondary passports and alternative citizenships have been in high demand from geo-political unrest and the coronavirus, experts tell Business Insider. As more programs come online, Khan is feeling vindicated that the program he's led for three years now is being replicated so far and wide.
"Dominica, Antigua, Grenada, St. Lucia, Malta, Cyprus, Montenegro," he rattles off as examples. "You name it. All of these programs really originated from St. Kitts and Nevis."
Earlier this year, the country dropped its prices, offering a family of four passports for a $150,000 donation, down from $195,000. There are also other more expensive options to make a real-estate purchase that must be held for a set amount of years.
The discount should help keep demand steady, "but we're not in a race to the bottom," Khan said. "We're not trying to just be selling. It must be something that is solid and must be in line with our platinum brand."
It's not a brand that's been easy to build: "There is an idea that citizenship by investment is a conduit for money laundering and possibly tax evasion," says Kahn. "I can assure you that's not the case. Our due diligence is one of the strongest in the world."
But if travel restrictions - like those currently barring people from St. Kitts and Nevis, the United States, and plenty of others from countries around the world - continue, the other side of that brand could be lost, too. The next few months will decide if the country still has one of the most powerful passports in terms of visa-free entry in the region.
"We keep our fingers crossed," Khan said.
Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/st-kitts-and-nevis-citizenship-by-investment-thrives-amid-coronavirus-2020-8
Jul 01 Five Caribbean destinations achieve marine protection goals ahead of schedule
ANTIGUA - Five Caribbean countries and territories were recognized for their early achievement of the ambitious marine protection target they committed to when joining the Caribbean Challenge Initiative (CCI).
The CCI 20-by-20 Conservation Goal challenges members to conserve and manage at least 20 percent of their marine and coastal environment by 2020.
The Dominican Republic led the list of early achievers with approximately 75 percent of its marine area under protection, followed by St. Kitts and Nevis (50 percent), the U.S. Virgin Islands (44 percent), Puerto Rico (27 percent), and Haiti (23 percent).
"It is a momentous occasion to reach a conservation goal that will benefit the ocean and communities in the Caribbean for generations to come," said St. Lucia-based CCI Envoy Karolin Troubetzkoy, who honored the early achievers at a ceremony in Antigua last week.
The CCI is an innovative platform uniting government, the private sector and partners - such as funding agencies and NGOs - in a collaborative movement to conserve and sustainably manage the Caribbean's marine and coastal environments.
Launched in 2008, the CCI aims to incentivize Caribbean governments to meet their marine conservation objectives and to support them by catalyzing new funding and accelerating meaningful action. It also works to create more prosperous and stable economies - achieved through sustainable development and growth - to help ensure a more secure future for the entire region.
In congratulating the CCI "Early Achievers", Troubetzkoy noted that "recognizing these nations' successes in marine and coastal conservation is an important message to the other CCI members that getting to the 20 percent target by 2020 is not an impossible goal." She hoped to be celebrating with the remaining CCI destinations next year.
In addition to the awardees, four other Caribbean countries and territories were celebrated for taking steps to propose marine areas that will more than double their current levels of protection. These included the Bahamas, the British Virgin Islands, Grenada and St. Lucia. The Bahamas recently announced that it will declare an additional eight-plus million acres of marine protection, which will more than double its area of protection and meet the CCI 20-by-20 target ahead of the 2020 deadline.
Source: https://www.traveldailynews.com/post/five-caribbean-destinations-achieve-marine-protection-goals-ahead-of-schedule
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