St Lucia Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Hon. Allen Chastanet,  presented the Budget address 2019-2020 on April 15.

During his speech, A surplus of $37.3 million was realised from the Citizenship by Investment donation receipts.

Receipts from the CIP were significantly higher at $66.4 million compared to $27.8 million the year before. This led to a larger primary surplus, up from $52.3 million to $101.5 million and a lower overall fiscal deficit down to $69.7 million from $110.1 million the year before. Our public debt to GDP declined to 64.9% in 2018, from 65.2% in 2017

The Government of Saint Lucia is committed to restructuring the economy and putting it on a path of sustained and inclusive growth. In this regard, the government has outlined a medium term development plan for 2019-2022.

Here is a quick summary of budget speech.

• The St Lucia economy continues to grow; it has grown by 8% since we first took office
• Debt to GDP is coming down, although it is still a bit above the prudential benchmark, the debt to GDP ratio has fallen from 67.7% in 2015, to 64.9% in 2018;
• Stay over visitors have increased from 344,000 in 2015, to 394,000 in 2018
• Cruise visitors continue to break records and has increased from 677,000 in 2015 to 760,000 in 2018;
• Investors continue to want to finance tourism development;
• There is a primary surplus;
•  The fiscal deficit is within manageable limits and
•  Unemployment has fallen from 24.1% in 2015 to 20.2% in 2018.

Hotel developments

Seven major hotel projects are expected to commence during this financial year:

• The Environmental Impact Assessment for the Resort and Residences at Honeymoon Beach in Canelles is 95% complete and the developer hopes to break ground shortly. This project will be constructed in three phases. Phases 1 and 2 will be the construction of the hotel and residences, which will be financed by the developer. Phase 3, which is a CIP approved project, will be the construction of villas.
• The hotel in Choiseul has been taken over by a new investor and will no longer be a Fairmont branded property. There have been minimal changes to the design, the financing has been secured and construction is expected to commence in the fourth quarter of this year.
• With the Sandals Project, we are awaiting the outcome of a legal matter and once this is resolved the 360-suite project at a cost of US$200 million will get underway.
•  A 400-room hotel is earmarked for Choc with plans well underway.
• 150-room Courtyard Marriot at Pointe Seraphine.
• Very shortly a major hotel-golf course in Cap Estate will be announced.
• The development of the DSH project continues with our first race rescheduled to National Day this year. The horse racing track is being enhanced with two boutique hotels along with a polo and equestrian field. The second phase of the track is to include apartments, offices and commercial space is due to commence later this year.

These projects will provide hundreds of jobs during the construction phase and further employment once the properties are complete and open.

In addition to heightened activity in the construction sector, growth will be supported by an expansion in the tourism sector which is expected to continue in 2019 with projected increases in arrivals for stay overs and for cruise visitors.

Tourism

Tourist arrivals across all categories grew by 10.2% to register a new record of just over 1.2 million visitors in 2018.

• Cruise arrivals set a new record high, growing by 13.6% to over 760,000.  Similarly, stay-over arrivals continued to trend upward, increasing by 2.2% to almost 395,000, the highest to date. This was due to favourable economic conditions in source markets, expanded airlift and enhanced marketing efforts.
• Yacht arrivals also increased by 26.7% in 2018.

The full budget address is available here