Speaking during the Caribbean jurisdiction's recent finance industry promotional tour to Switzerland, Dr Douglas revealed that the new captive insurance vehicle will be "extremely competitive", with low licence fees for small captives with premiums of less than US$1.5 million.

Dr Douglas told lawyers, accountants and representatives of the financial community in Zurich that St Kitts & Nevis's financial services offering has gradually expanded in recent years, and he claimed that the jurisdiction is now amongst the most competitive offshore centres in the Caribbean.

“The basket of services being offered by St. Kitts is slowly growing and the development of new products is being done with as much risk management and quality assurance as the industry demands internationally,” he stated.

“We have found from experience that providers who have come in from overseas and who have established themselves, are the ones who have reaped the tremendous benefits and rewards of our very competitive government fees for the setting up of companies for trust, for limited partnerships and more recently for foundations,” Dr. Douglas explained.

He added that St Kitts strives to cater for companies and individuals of all income levels rather than striving to attract the bigger fish.

“We have particularly striven not to exclude the smaller companies and the not so wealthy individuals from the opportunities that our entities and our structures can provide for them,” Dr Douglas stated.

“It is for this reason that the cost for setting up an exempt company, a trust, a limited partnership or a foundation, which is not subject to local taxation in St. Kitts, is only US$200,” he added.

The Prime Minister also said that the jurisdiction's offshore industry was underpinned by its stable economic and political environment, characterised by low inflation, steady economic growth and a strong local currency (the Eastern Caribbean dollar) that has been pegged to the US currency at a rate of one dollar to EC$2.70 for over a quarter of a century.

“The competitiveness of our island as a provider of financial services is also significantly enhanced by our excellent social and economic infrastructure, including state of the art telecommunications, a road network that is among the best in the Caribbean, a literacy rate which is over 98 percent," Dr Douglas observed.

“Today I am pleased that we are doing fine but we need to take this sector to the next level and that is why we are here," the Prime Minister told the delegates.