For their part, the five Caribbean nations have reacted angrily to claims that they are not doing enough to scrutinise applicants.<\/p>\n
Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit has described his country’s CBI programme as “sound and transparent”, adding authorities had worked hard to ensure its integrity.<\/p>\n
The government says passport sales have raised more than $1bn since the initiative’s inception in 1993, paying for vital infrastructure including a state-of-the-art hospital.<\/p>\n
In St Lucia, Prime Minister Philip J Pierre says the island adheres to the highest standards of security to ensure its CBI does not inadvertently aid illicit activities.<\/p>\n
The need to appease the world’s superpowers with raising revenue is a delicate balancing act for small Caribbean nations with meagre resources, dependent on the whims of tourism.<\/p>\n
CBI programmes were labelled a lifeline at a regional industry summit in April, with funds used for everything from cleaning up after natural disasters to shoring up national pension schemes. Antigua’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne said money raised had brought his country back from the brink of bankruptcy over the past decade.<\/p>\n
Aside from buying property, other routes to Caribbean citizenship through investment typically include a one-off donation to a national development fund or similar. They range from $200,000 in Dominica for a single applicant, to $250,000 for a main applicant and up to three qualifying dependents in Dominica and St Kitts. In Antigua, investors also have the option of donating $260,000 to the University of the West Indies.<\/p>\n
In the face of international pressure, the islands have committed to new measures to bolster oversight, including establishing a regional regulator to set standards, monitor operations and ensure compliance.<\/p>\n
Additionally, six principles agreed with the US include enhanced due diligence, regular audits, mandatory interviews with all applicants, and the removal of a loophole that previously enabled an applicant denied by one country to apply in another.<\/p>\n
These days, passport sales account for 10-30% of the islands’ GDP.<\/p>\n
Andre Huie, a journalist in St Kitts, says his country’s CBI scheme is “generally well supported” as a result. “The public understand the value of it to the economy, and appreciate what the government has been able to do with the money.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For their part, the five Caribbean nations have reacted angrily to claims that they are not doing enough…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-297268","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114928221263461987","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}