The Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Godwin Friday, has said the government will launch a citizenship by investment (CBI) programme during 2026, ending more than two decades in which the Caribbean state refused the model. According to iWitness News, he stressed that the programme would be insulated from political control and tightly managed.
The New Democratic Party (NDP) came to power at the general election of November 2025, ending some 25 years of Unity Labour Party government. Establishing a CBI programme was an NDP election pledge and was formalised in the Budget Speech of February 2026.
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is the last OECS member to move towards a citizenship by investment model, previous governments having rejected it repeatedly.
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According to iWitness News, Mr Friday described CBI as “a financing mechanism, not an economy”, intended to provide capital for investment and debt management rather than to replace production, employment and exports. He identified four economic pillars: agriculture, tourism, the “new economy” of information technology, and the ocean economy.
He linked the decision to the burden of public debt, saying the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio stands at around 113% and is forecast to rise further, against a target of bringing it back to the 60% threshold recommended by the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB).
Mr Friday stressed that the programme would be kept apart from the political machinery, with full accountability to parliament for money coming in and money spent. “There has to be a distance between how these programmes are managed and the political machinery,” he said on The Bubb Report.
He treated due diligence as non-negotiable, tying it to the country’s “good name” and the value of the Vincentian passport. According to iWitness News, he also supports common regional standards and an oversight role for the ECCB, and opposes a “race to the bottom” among OECS countries.
Mr Friday argued that being the last OECS state to launch a CBI programme allows Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to learn from the experience, good and bad, of those that went before. He insisted it is not a “get rich quick scheme”.
According to Searchlight and iWitness News, he said the country has forgone as much as US$1 billion in CBI revenue over the past decade by staying out. The programme’s detailed operating rules are still being finalised.
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