Saint Kitts and Nevis on August 18 announced that it has been ranked the best citizenship investment programme in the world by Professional Wealth Management, the magazine published by the Financial Times.
The eastern Caribbean country scored a perfect 10/10 on due diligence and integrity, ease and efficiency of application processing, family-friendliness, and travel or residency requirements, and a near perfect 9/10 on the level of investment required and programme profile.
St. Kitts and Nevis, which established its citizenship by investment (CBI) programme in 1984, beat the likes of Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, St. Lucia, Austria and Vanuatu in the new 2021 CBI Index from Professional Wealth Management which provides the most authoritative global ranking of the world’s 14 CBI schemes.
The country is a dual-island nation situated between the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea.
Explaining its decision to crown St. Kitts and Nevis, the 2021 CBI Index reported: “St. Kitts and Nevis remains the CBI nation with the fastest processing time and is the Caribbean country with the largest visa-free or visa-on-arrival offering. This year, St Kitts and Nevis also achieves a perfect score in the Family Pillar, thanks to changes allowing siblings to be included in an application.”
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St. Kitts and Nevis, which offers the most powerful passport among Caribbean CBI programmes with visa-free access to 157 countries, was ranked joint-first in the 2021 CBI Index with Dominica, which has visa-free access to just 143 countries.
Les Khan, CEO of the St. Kitts and Nevis Citizenship Investment Unit, said: “Our top place global ranking in the 2021 CBI Index is independent recognition of the enduring quality of the market-leading citizenship investment programmes that St. Kitts and Nevis offers the world.
According to him, it confirms that the Platinum Brand standing is based on rigorous assessment of the due diligence it applies to all applications, the integrity and efficiency of its programme, and all the other features and innovations that keep it ahead of the pack.
“While 2020 and 2021 have been difficult years for everyone, the launch of new investment products and a limited time offer ensured that St. Kitts and Nevis bucked the trend among CBI programmes and we look forward to even more interest as our vaccination roll-out outpaces the rest of the region and we welcome the world back to our beaches and seas.”
John Errington, managing director of London-based CBI specialists Errington Bose Immigration Services, said: “We are seeing more and more clients from Africa, and Nigeria in particular. Nigerians are favouring a St. Kitts [and Nevis] passport to allow them to travel to London and other places more easily.”
St. Kitts and Nevis’s COVID-19 vaccination programme is the best by head of population of any country in the eastern Caribbean. As of August 17, the country had provided 94 doses per 100 people, more than any other CBI country in the Caribbean, and significantly ahead of the global average of 61.5 doses per 100.
The 2021 CBI Index report highlighted St. Kitts and Nevis’s leadership on due diligence and new escrow arrangements to protect investors. It reported: “Some CBI nations have been enhancing their due diligence practices for many years… In St. Kitts and Nevis, for example, as of March 2021, new and existing developers must submit a payment schedule to the St. Kitts Investment Promotion Agency. This will govern the way a project is financed, improving the administration of funds provided to real estate developments under the Programme and increasing the likelihood that developments will be completed successfully and at pace.”
