The CBI Index: adaptability as a mark of endurance and success
The first CBI schemes were launched in the 1980s, and the industry has been in a state of constant evolution ever since
Citizenship by investment can trace its roots back more than three decades, when St Kitts and Nevis passed Section 3(5) of its Citizenship Act, thereby enabling a person to be registered as a citizen if “cabinet is satisfied that such person has invested substantially in St Christopher and Nevis”. Yet longevity has not produced stagnancy, and the industry has been in constant evolution, with its momentum renewed by investor demand, stakeholder needs, and international oversight.
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Examples are copious and diverse. In 2014, Malta introduced a one-year residence requirement under its Individual Investor Programme to alleviate EU concerns that economic citizens lacked a genuine link to the state. That same year, Dominica made a showing of support for local property developers eager to get their projects underway by launching a second, $200,000 real estate arm to its Citizenship by Investment Programme. In May 2018, yielding to European pressure, Cyprus announced that it would cap its programme at 700 per year and apply enhanced due diligence on all applicants, extending the expected processing time to six months.
By responding to direct calls for change from internal and external parties, citizenship by investment programmes have ensured their survival and retained their place in the modern immigration landscape.
By responding to direct calls for change from internal and external parties, citizenship by investment programmes have ensured their survival and retained their place in the modern immigration landscape. A different kind of response, not involving outsider appeals, has however also begun to shape the citizenship by investment industry. Indeed, in late 2017 and 2018, citizenship by investment jurisdictions began to take steps to modify their programmes in response to their shifting environment, with directives for amendment coming from the governments themselves.
One illustration is the speed with which certain Caribbean island-nations modified their existing programmes to overcome the impact of devastating climatic events in September 2017. In Antigua and Barbuda, the minimum investment amounts under the National Development Fund were reduced by 50 per cent.
St Kitts and Nevis took the opportunity to establish a provisional route to citizenship: a Hurricane Relief Fund that, in the words of the prime minister, would enable “the country and its people to recover more quickly and to ensure that the infrastructure and people’s homes are fit and habitable where they have been damaged by this season’s hurricanes”.
More recently, St Kitts and Nevis unveiled a new, permanent citizenship option in the form of the Sustainable Growth Fund (SGF). The SGF marked a significant maturation in the citizenship by investment market, as the scope of the SGF was closely aligned to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations to be achieved by 2030. The SGF, arguably today’s most popular option for economic citizenship despite its youth, stands as a primary case in point of how, by identifying global interests and taking active steps towards the pursuit of those interests, governments can create a strategy for citizenship by investment that enables their programmes not merely to last, but to thrive.
