Senate approval for major project

By the Caribbean Journal staff

St Lucia is closer to launching a proposed citizenship by investment programme.

The country’s new Citizenship by Investment bill was approved by the island’s senate last week.

St Lucia Minister for Legal Affairs, Home Affairs and National Security Victor Phillip La Corbiniere said the bill would “boost Saint Lucia’s economy.”

If launched, it would make St Lucia the latest Eastern Caribbean country to offer citizenship by investment, along with countries including St Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda and Dominica.

“We know that the Citizenship by Investment program has the potential to generate significant sums of money, and it is important particularly at this time—in terms of the economic realities of the world and economic realities of Saint Lucia—to look at various modalities such as this to raise the requisite revenue,” La Corbiniere said.

“We cannot sit back as other countries participate in this process,” he said. “I would suggest perhaps that down the line, it may well be that countries in the Caribbean that have citizenship by investment programs may want to look at coming together in some kind of standing committee. Perhaps a standing committee of CARICOM to keep this matter under constant examination and to be able to keep the government properly advised on developments taking place in this area, and how we need to be proactive in addressing some of these issues.”