NIA CHARLESTOWN NEVIS (April 05, 2022) – – The Nevis Island Administration (NIA) remains focused on diversifying the island’s economy in order to achieve its development goals, as opposed to relying on receipts from St. Kitts and Nevis’ Citizenship By Investment (CBI) program.
This is according to Hon. Mark Brantley, Premier of Nevis and Minister of Finance and Economic Planning in the NIA, during a recent press engagement. He was responding to a question posed by a journalist regarding Nevis’ prospects should the CBI program of St. Kitts and Nevis come to a halt.
“I believe that Nevis is already trying to diversify its local economy. We never had CBI in terms of something that we could rely on, so we have been forced to be more self-reliant in that sense. That is why we have pivoted hard to agriculture and food security. We’re looking at the movie business and trying to grow that.
“We are currently seeing the Apsara Project at Potworks, which is proceeding apace. We are very excited that we are told by the developers that the marina at the Nautilus Project there at Tamarind Cove, that is going to restart very shortly, that financing is in place and that’s expected to be a go. That too will give us another string to our bow insofar as our tourism is concerned. We continue to work with the Nisbet Plantation and to seek to finalize that arrangement so that can be renovated, upgraded and reopened in the shortest possible time. We continue to try our very best with respect to these various development projects.”
The Premier explained that the Apsara Project under construction in Pot works, St. James’ is one of several projects the government hopes will come on stream in this fiscal year as they seek to expand the local economy and attract greater foreign direct investment post-COVID.
He said the project is one the NIA feels can add value to Nevis as the government looks beyond the CBI and investments related to the program.
“The Apsara Project is intended to be a campus of sorts where we are trying to attract small and medium-sized businesses from other countries, predominantly Hong Kong, to relocate their operations here, and that whole complex is designed to house them as they come here. That is why we are referring to it as a science and technology business park because that again is an innovation that we’ve introduced to try and diversify our local economy.
“So we here on the island can’t just sit down and simply wait on CBI money, so we have been forced to try and innovate and do some new and different things and we will continue to try and do that. CBI will continue to be important to us [St. Kitts and Nevis] as indeed tourism in Nevis is going to continue to be important, but we must find ways to diversify around that.”