ST. GEORGE’S, Grenada, Jul 28, CMC -Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell Tuesday defended the Citizenship by Investment (CBI) programme as the government tabled legislation aligning the programme to Eastern Caribbean Citizenship by Investment Regulatory Authority (ECCIRA).
Mitchell told legislators that the amended legislation positions Grenada as the leader in the CBI migration industry when it comes to regulatory oversight and the modernisation emphasising that all of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) territories with a CBI programme have signed onto the EICERA and have since enacted legislation.
He said that Grenada has already enacted the EICERA agreement and that as the minister with responsibility for citizenship he has already signed the necessary Statutory Rule and Order (SRO) that gives effect to the EICERA agreement and becoming law in Grenada on July 31 this year.
“What this means Mr. Speaker is that we are duty bound by our legal treaty obligation to in fact amend our Citizenship by Investment Act to make sure that the CBI act or domestic CBI act now becomes compliant with the Eastern Caribbean Citizenship by Investment Regulatory Authority agreement.”
Mitchell said that this is a fundamental amendment to an existing law not just for Grenada but for all of the OECS territories who have a CBI programme since it “it subjects all of us to regional regulatory oversight and so all of us are required to comply now with this agreement.
Mitchell said that the regulatory authority will be hosted and situated in Grenada and that he was glad St. George’s had been chosen as the location noting that since the four-year rule of the People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG) which collapsed in 1983, “almost all regional institutions particularly within the OECS that once was headquartered in Grenada took flight and have never returned”
“.…and so Grenada is happy to host and proud to host the Eastern Caribbean Regulatory Citizenship by Investment Regulatory Authority because it demonstrates our commitment to in fact high standards of a regulatory oversight of the citizenship by investment migration space. ”
Mitchell said that the amended legislation seeks to protect Grenada’s sovereignty, strengthen the integrity of its CBI programme and “crucially safeguard visa free access, preserve a major He said that it is important to point out that this legislation did not emerge in isolation and the agreement amongst the countries did not emerge in isolation.
Mitchell said that it was in response to a “rapidly changing global environment” in which the CBI operates, noting as an example, the European Union repeatedly reviewing such programmes globally and expressing concerns about security, governance, anti-money laundering controls and tax currency.
He said similar concerns have been raised by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD ) and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
“In fact recently Mr. Speaker the European Union wrote to each of the OECS territories that has citizenship by investment migration programmes and that are also a party to the free visa access Schengen arrangement with the European Union indicating that if these programmes continued and were not ended by 2028 that the visa free access programmes would probably come to an end because just the fact of having an investment migration programme or citizenship by investment migration programme in their view is a sufficient trigger to warrant revocation of the (8:16) visa free treaty arrangements that we have with them.
“So we accept that countries like Grenada like our brothers and sisters in the OECS who operate investment migration programmes expected to demonstrate that they know exactly who they are admitting, where the applicant’s wealth originates from, whether they possess security risk and whether robust systems exist to detect fraud sanctions etc…”
Mitchell said obviously failure to take those matters seriously will have consequences.
“So we recognise Mr. Speaker therefore that all of us not just Grenada, any OECS are required to reform. We are required to choose strong governance, we are required to choose higher standards because protecting the value of Grenadian citizenship ultimately means protecting every Grenadian citizen and that is why Mr. Speaker we’ve chosen rather than complain rather than moan to in fact reform.
“So we recognise that whether it’s transparency, whether it’s beneficial ownership, whether it’s sanctions compliance, visa free access or visa waivers it is important for us to build trust with our partners to demonstrate to them that we are serious and to demonstrate that we can cooperate and work together on these issues because if the trust is not there Mr. Speaker we will lose credibility as individual countries in terms of our programmes and collectively.”
Mitchell told legislators that the CBI has been very important to Grenada noting that CBI revenues have helped the island and many of the OECS countries through exceedingly difficult economic times and the revenues are used in a wide range of areas from education to health care to disaster recovery to housing.
He said in the case of Grenada official quarterly statistics for 2026 show the importance of the programme.
Real estate investments have totalled EC$73 million (One EC dollar=US$0.37 cents) for the year. Net revenues from the investment migration programme for the quarter is approximately EC38 million dollars.
“So if you take the 38 million dollars directly to the state and the inflows of 73 million to the real estate investments in the first quarter of 2026, you’re talking 100 million non-tax revenue for the countries,” Mitchell said, adding that he wanted to refer to an example of what the investment migration industry means perhaps in a more startling sense to OECS ”and why it is important for us to defend, modernise, modify but protect the programmes.
He said that in St. Kitts and Nevis where the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is predicting that debt is expected to climb above 60 per cent simply because of a significant drop-off in investment migration revenue.
He said that the debt which stood at 58.4 per cent at the end of 2025 will increase to 63.6 per cent this year and continue trending upward in the absence of stronger fiscal adjustment.
“In fact it predicts that by 2031, four years, the debt could reach as much as 78.2 per cent of GDP under current projections. A key driver of the rising debt burden is a sharp decline in citizenship by investment revenue since 2024. CBI receipts which peaked at 25.8 per cent of GDP in 2022 and 22.2 per cent in 2023 are projected at just 5.3 perent in 2025.
“So Mr. Speaker what you have is a dramatic five-fold drop in their revenues and with the five-fold drop in their non-tax revenues you see therefore the projections of significant debt because where are they going to get the money from to finance the development? ”
Mitchell said that while Grenada is not as dependent as it gets on CBI revenues “we recognise all of us that the importance of the programmes as a financial development tool cannot be underestimated and hence the need to ensure that we protect the programme and that we do what is required to ensure that the programmes remain for future generations of Grenadians and citizens within the OECS have to come.”
CMC/hg/ir/2026