Business View Caribbean - August 2016 97
BV: How long has St. Kitts and Nevis had that program
in place?
CABLE
: This program was in place for about 20 years,
but there were some modifications made to it. Previ-
ously, I think the levels of investment have been re-
duced and in some cases, we’ve increased fees. You
can get that passport now even without the investment
on the ground in terms of concrete.
BV: Can you talk about what sort of benefits do you
get from offering that program and what sort of people
choose to take advantage of it?
CABLE
: The government gets a lot of revenue for the
treasury and for what is considered the development
fund, which is kept outside of the main treasury. So
there is a lot of trading and job opportunities that are
offered to young people who are unemployed, which
are only possible because of this program.
BV: So the chamber doesn’t directly benefit, but it is enhanc-
ing the business climate, correct?
CABLE
: It’s enhancing the business climate. It has
increased the spending power of persons who have
normally been unemployed and so it rebounds to the
business community.
BV: Talk about the business climate now that the re-
cession is in the rearview mirror?
CABLE: The business climate on these islands, since
we import almost all of our food and all of our cloth-
ing, etc., is very much linked to the world economy. So,
during the world recession in 2008 until, say, up to the
present, we were in dire straits. We had low jobs, we
had layoffs, businesses had low revenues, etc. We had
all of the complaints that exist out there. However, at
the present, because of what is called the sugar indus-
try diversification fund – the income that comes from
the citizenship process – that has been used to put
former sugar workers into alternative jobs, etc. And we
are now seeing the economy climbing out of this reces-
sion, perhaps better than the rest of the other areas
of the Caribbean. We estimate a 3.5-percent growth in
this year, and that started in the last half of last year.
There’s been a gradual improvement because of the
investment people are making in, as I said, holiday
homes, timeshares and large hotel properties. There
