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St. Kitts and Nevis: Executive
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St Kitts and Nevis Executive Summary
St
Kitts and Nevis are islands in the Caribbean
Sea, total 261 sq km in area, population 50,300.
The climate is tropical, tempered by constant
sea breezes and there is little seasonal temperature
variation. There can be hurricanes.
The
capital is Basseterre, on St Kitts. Bradshaw
International Airport, near Basseterre, can
handle large jets. There are now direct flights
from New York, Philadelphia, Miami and London.
St.
Kitts became Britain's first colony in the West
Indies with the founding of a settlement in
1623. The Federation of St Kitts and Nevis finally
attained full political independence within
the Commonwealth in 1983 and, in order to relieve
the anxiety of Nevisians, Nevis acquired autonomy
within the Federation, together with its own
Legislature and Cabinet. In 1998, a vote in
Nevis on a referendum to separate from Saint
Kitts fell short of the two-thirds majority
needed. Unlike most other English speaking Caribbean
jurisdictions, St Kitts and Nevis is neither
a dependency, nor a crown colony of Britain,
which means that it is not subject to the EU's
Savings Tax Directive.
The
legal system is largely based on English Common
Law, and appeal is to the Caribbean Court of Appeal
based in Trinidad and Tobago.
Although
sugar dominated the agricultural sector until
2005, when it was finally abandoned as a major
crop, activities such as tourism, export-oriented
manufacturing, and offshore banking have assumed
larger roles in the economy. GDP growth was good
in 2004 and 2005, but while St Kitts & Nevis
was one of the stronger Caribbean economic performers
in 2007 and 2008, with growth of 3.2% in 2008,
the IMF predicted that the economy would contract
by 1.2% in 2009. Actual contraction was nearer
9.6%, followed by a further decline of 1.5% in
2010. Estimates are for growth of 1.5% in 2011.
The Federation's currency is the East Caribbean
dollar, pegged at 2.7 to the US dollar.
St
Kitts and Nevis has offshore legislation as a
Federation, but so does Nevis independently. On
the whole, St Kitts focuses on attracting inward
industrial and tourist investment, while Nevis
concentrates more on offshore asset protection.
Nevis has been particularly successful with its
LLC (Limited Liability Company) legislation.
In
2000, St Kitts and Nevis had found itself on the
OECD and FATF blacklists, but was removed from
both after promising to tidy up legislative problems,
which was done with a number of enactments in
2001-2003. However, the jurisdiction was 'grey
listed' by the OECD in 2009 as a territory which
had committed to, but not substantially implemented,
the Organization's transparency standard (a minimum
of 12 Tax and Information Exchange Agreements).
St Kitts and Nevis was removed from the OECD grey
list in March 2010, after signing 16 Tax Information
Exchange Agreements.
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