Early Move to Diversify Has Put St. Kitts and Nevis in a Stronger Position to Weather CBI Pressure, Says Prime Minister Drew 

Basseterre, St. Kitts, November 5, 2026 (PMO) — Prime Minister, Hon. Dr. Terrance Drew, said his administration began working from day one, in 2022, to reduce St. Kitts and Nevis’ dependence on the Citizenship by Investment (CBI) Programme, having identified the country’s heavy reliance on a single source of revenue as a risk to its economic stability.

Speaking at his Roundtable session with members of the media on Thursday, November 5, Prime Minister Drew recalled telling a journalist in one of his first interviews after taking office, “I said the CBI will be the most challenging thing I have to deal with.”

“The last administration left our economy heavily dependent on CBI. And when I got in, I said that is too risky, and we need to diversify the economy. And we came up with the Sustainable Island State Agenda,” he said.

The Prime Minister raised that concern publicly in November 2022, ahead of his administration’s first national budget. In October 2024, he set out the government’s Sustainable Economic Expansion and Diversification initiative, identifying construction, tourism, agriculture and sustainable projects as areas for growth under the wider Sustainable Island State Agenda.

At Thursday’s Roundtable, Dr. Drew said CBI accounted for almost 70 percent of the budget when he took office. He said the government was aiming to bring that share below 20 percent in 2026 and hoped to reduce it to less than 10 percent in 2027. He added that his government has been discussing bridging finance to help manage the transition.

“We systematically, year by year, cut our dependence on CBI, so that when this day comes, we will not be panicking,” Prime Minister Drew said. “There will be challenges, of course, but we are not panicking because we had a plan that we conceived since day one.”

Dr. Drew pointed to geothermal development in Nevis and solar power in St. Kitts as ways to reduce energy costs and make the Federation more competitive for businesses. He also identified reliable water infrastructure and the digitisation of public services as part of the effort to build an economy that can withstand a decline in CBI revenue.

He indicated that the government’s longer-term objective is to broaden the country’s sources of growth and public revenue so that essential investments are less exposed to swings in any one programme.

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