The Grenadian economy grew by an estimated 4½ percent in 2017, driven by strong activity in construction, tourism, and education sectors, according to IMF.
Grenada’s economy made important strides in recent years, achieving an impressive debt reduction of 37 percentage points of GDP since 2013, improving the framework for fiscal policy, strengthening the financial system, upgrading governance, and creating a better business environment.
FDI is estimated at 8½ percent of GDP, driven by tourism and proceeds from the Citizenship-by-Investment (CBI) program, according to IMF in Article IV Consultation 2018 report.
The Prime Minister of Grenada revealed The Government used 40% of CBI revenues to pay off its debts.
The Grenada CBI program requires investors to pay USD 150,000 one time donation to the NTF Government fund or invest USD 350,000 in property, to receive citizenship and passport. The Citizenship by investment programme funded NTF fund is used to boost agriculture and tourism sectors in Grenada.
Grenada’s citizenship by investment program is widely considered to be the ‘Gold’ standard of CIPs.
In an interview to Thomson Reuters Foundation, Grenada’s Prime Minister Keith Mitchell said his country had gained massively since starting a programme in 2014 whereby people can acquire citizenship for an investment from $150,000.
“It’s bringing in an enormous amount of money, and it’s helping us to reduce our debt burden in a very serious way,” said Mitchell, whose government is using 40 percent of citizenship revenues to pay off its debts.
“It’s making a significant contribution to the solutions to the problems in our country,” he said
Dr. the Rt. Hon. Keith C. Mitchell, Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and Energy said in 2018 budget speech
- Grenada’s Citizenship-by-Investment (CBI) Programme, which commenced in 2014, has exceeded all expectations in 2017 and is now regarded as one of the highest-rated CBI pro- grammes in the world.
- There was a 50% increase in applications received in 2017, yielding receipts of $128.4 million as at the end of October 2017.
- IMF lauded our Government for setting up a legal framework to prudently manage the inflows from the CBI Programme, and declared the Programme to be the gold standard amongst the other regional programmes for transparency.
- For 2018, we have adopted conservative assumptions for receipts from the CBI Programme, to the tune of $81.1 million.
CBI fees for 2018 projected to EC$ 5,441,881 for the Government according to 2018 revenues report.
Over 98% of applicants for Grenada CIP are chinese families. InQ1 2018, Grenada Citizenship Unit received a total of 77 CBI applications, of which 49 applications are for NTF and 28 for Real estate investment. Property investors receive permanent residency card and address in Grenada.
Grenadian passport has visa free travel to 131 countries in the world and ranked 33rd powerful passport in the world, according to recent Henley 2018 passport rankings. The passport has visa free travel to China, United Kingdom, EU schengen states etc. Last year Grenada signed visa waiver with Russia.
In 2017 CBI Committee Chairman, Kaisha Ince, has reported a spike in applications so far this year, which surpasses the total number of applications for 2016. To date more than 410 applications have been processed, resulting in millions of dollars flowing into the local economy, she said.
Grenada recently started issuing e-passports to its citizens to strengthen the border security and to protect the integrity of the CBI program.
The Prime Minister said …
Maintaining the integrity and security of our national passport is also critical given the significant emphasis placed on our Citizenship by Investment (CBI) Programme. In attracting citizens by investment, we must ensure that the passports we offer as part of the CBI benefits package, represent the most secure form of travel document—and that brothers and sisters, is what we will be getting with the new ePassports.
Grenada also has a E-2 treaty visa agreement with the United States. Grenada’s E-2 visa is not widely used by investors in the CBI program, as in 2017 only 1 E-2 visa issued for Grenada according to State Department.
A foreign second passport is considered to be a new status class for rich and high-net worth families.
