St Kitts And Nevis Financial Sector Making Steady Progress

by Amanda Banks, Tax-News.com, London

19 April 2006

St Kitts and Nevis has made steady progress in developing its financial services sector since securing its removal from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) blacklists in 2002, according to a senior government official.

According to the Communications Unit of the Prime Minister's Office, Shawna Lake, the jurisdiction's Director of Marketing and Development, revealed last week that St. Kitts had 1,680 companies on the register as of 31st December 2005.

Ms Lake noted that while this was "a big improvement" the numbers are still relatively modest compared to other jurisdictions that receive hundreds of company formation applications per month.

However, she explained that during 2001 and 2002, the department had to focus its energies on securing the jurisdiction's removal from the OECD and FATF blacklists, meaning that entirely new legislation and financial products had to be structured.

“We weren’t able to focus on dealing with any new products for our market and much promotion and marketing, because we were finding that we weren’t able to market in an environment where people were under the misconception that once they placed money in a blacklisted jurisdiction or made investments in a blacklisted jurisdiction that their money was automatically tarnished, so that was one of the issues that we had,” she observed.

Ms Lake also said that St Kitts has been keen to promote "real investment" rather than encouraging the incorporation of "shell companies."

“So we’ve had steady but modest growth in that area," noted Ms Lake.

However, on an upbeat note she added that "there are a few developments that I believe are going to enhance the number of companies that are being formed in St. Kitts."

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