 Hello and welcome to Issues and Answers. I am Lissa Joseph. In this edition, we're talking the Citizenship by Investment Program, the CIP. And January 1st marked five years since St. Lucia has entered into this global competitive industry of the Citizenship by Investment Program. And with me is the Chairman of the Board for the CIP, Mr. Ryan DeVoe. Thank you so much for coming through. The discussion is going to be very wide ranging or centered on CIP. In the last five years, St. Lucia has had many successes when it comes to the CIP. There have been legislative changes to ensure our competitiveness. We've also launched the CIP bonds to reflect the time that we're in. And we talk about the success that we've been having with that with the Chairman, Ryan DeVoe. To start us off into what St. Lucia has been able to achieve has been sort of recognized by the United States along other international watchdogs, if you want to refer to them as that. And in a recent article, as recent as the 30th of March, 2021, the United States government cited the Citizenship by Investment Program in three Caribbean countries for lack of transparency. In its latest Human Rights Report, and in the corruption and lack of transparency in government section, the 2020 report identifies the CIP programs in Antigone, Barbuda, Dominica, and St. Kitts Nevis as citizen concerns and oversight and corruption due to lack of openness. You know that for St. Lucia, this has been quite a concern of its own ensuring that there is transparency and that governance is optimal, which is why there have been several legislative changes to ensure that. So, Mr. DeVoe, thank you so much for coming through. And this is a wonderful point to start off our discussion, because for the CIP program, there is always constant oversight, not just locally, but internationally as well. How did you receive this news that St. Lucia has not been cited by the United States report for lack of transparency? Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here and to demystify I guess a lot of what CIP is and so on. With regard to the recent article that you referenced, I think we're very pleased that the work we've been doing from a due diligence point of view, the relationships we have which are ongoing, very proactive, very open with the US as well as with many other international security and due diligence agencies where we have very good relationships. And so, I mean, one of the things we had worked on with them was to say, you know, we need that to be recognized because, you know, we hear it when we have these interactions on security. And, you know, I get involved in some of those meetings, Nesta Alfred as well, you know, with the intelligence community and we do those fairly regularly. And it's an integral part to the integrity of our entire program. And so I think, you know, the fact that, you know, finally it has been recognized. And so we, because I would say historically, you know, the region was painted with a broad brush. And so the fact that that distinction is being made, I think is recognition of, you know, the work and the effort we're putting in to ensure that these programs or, you know, the program in St. Lucia is well run, is transparent, you know, is run with integrity, etc. So we're pleased. Now, since its launch in 2016, we've seen a few amendments to the legislation for the CIP. Walk us through what would have been the sort of game changing pieces of regulation you believe that has positioned St. Lucia to not just be considered as having great transparency, but also positioning us in the marketplace for success. Sure. So I mean, if I use that five-year period, I mean, we would go back to the early days when, you know, even things like the investment amount for, you know, the donation amount was decreased from 200 down to the 100. Obviously at the time it was controversial. And, you know, we've carried that on by making changes now to the actual product. So in terms of, you know, who's eligible, you know, we've increased the ability to add in, you know, additional persons, whether it's parents or children or even adopted children now. You know, and again, all of that was feedback coming to us from the market that was saying, you know, St. Lucia, you're not competitive, you're not, you know, keeping up with where the market is. And so again, even if I go back to, you know, some of those changes we made, as I say, in the donation amount, which was controversial, but that's where the market was. And so if St. Lucia had stayed, you know, way above others and we were new as well, you know, we would not have been able to achieve what we've done. I think, too, from a legislative point of view, I would highlight as well, you know, the work we've done around the National Economic Fund. And that was always in the initial legislation, you know, had not been put in place. It's finally now in place. And that is the mechanism, you know, where funds are placed to then be, you know, used within our economy. And obviously that's been one of the big, you know, where the CIP funds gone. And as I say, I mean, you know, that, you know, all of these things take time. I've learned, you know, through this process that nothing happens as quickly perhaps as it could in the private sector. But, you know, at the end of the day, we have been steadily working on these things. And they're all there to ensure again that, you know, the transparency, the integrity of the program is where we want it to be. And so, I mean, I'm very proud to say, in the annual report last year, we had noted the National Economic Fund had been set up. You know, it now does have a functioning board. It has a bank account. It will be audited as it goes forward as the CIP is audited. And all of this will be information that, you know, is, you know, will be available and should be and needs to be available to the public of St. Lucia. So they know exactly what's happening. What's happening with the funds. We'll speak more specifically to the National Economic Fund, the NEF, because if we refer to it as that moving forward. But in terms of the marketplace itself, five years in the game, this is very, very young for St. Lucia. And we have some programs who are probably old as 50 years and so forth. When we look at what St. Lucia offers versus the competitors, what are some of the adjustments we had to make moving along the way. I know we spoke about the revision of the donation for to 100,000 US dollars, even for families and dependents and so forth. But in terms of the operational changes you have to make in order to remain competitive. Sure. So I think, you know, if I'm to walk, you know, in that continuum of marketing is something that we've continued to evolve, you know, with and at and so on. We've recently hired a marketing director for the unit. And that's a positive step as we now, you know, see marketing as being an integral part to, you know, the success of the unit. So again, if I go back, I mean, when you look at, so just to talk through your market, I mean, you have, you know, the single applicant segment. And, you know, when we analyze the market, Dominica was the leader and their price point was the 100,000 investment. So, like, you know, if you're going to decide to compete in that space, that's, you know, that's our competition. And so we decided to match that. We then saw, you know, our single applicant segment growing and our numbers, you know, building quite nicely. We realize, okay, in the family segment, you know, that was a space where we were not and we've had Antigua make, you know, changes that probably position them from a pure monetary point of view. So again, when, you know, we decided to reposition the bond offering, you know, we decided to use that, you know, how do we tailor that to more families? And again, you know, we've seen now our, you know, the number of bond applications, I think for last year was at 65. And, you know, a large number of those persons are the family segment. And again, it's responding to, you know, what the market wants and so on. And it's a very dynamic process. But I think, you know, we've been able to do that. When you talk as well, marketing, I would have to discuss, you know, the marketing arrangements we have for the jurisdiction. So in the early days of the program, it was based on, you know, we had specific agents for specific geographies. And, you know, by definition that, you know, then excluded other participants for those geographies. And so one of the fundamental changes we wanted to make was to, you know, make it a very, again, transparent, transparent arrangement where, you know, whoever brought a successful file was rewarded for that file. And so, you know, last year, not the year just gone, but the year before, was a very heavy year for us in terms of, you know, renegotiating those arrangements. And making it very open and transparent so that, you know, whoever brings you business is rewarded. So you can be from any part of the world once they've brought the business. And in the end, it all works out, all things being even, then that individual is rewarded. Correct. So there's no sort of exclusivity happening in any part of the world. Correct. Because what we had before was an arrangement where, you know, if you brought me a file from Asia, you know, another party would benefit from that, you know, successful file. And so, you know, there was a conflict and therefore, you know, a lack of interest, really, to introduce businesses in. I'm sure if somebody else is going to benefit. And so, you know, I mean, I think, you know, that's from learning how the industry works that, you know, we understood the changes we need to make and we've been able to drive those. And as a result, you now have, you know, an open, you know, open playing field where everybody can introduce business. You're rewarded based on what you bring. It's the same for, you know, the arrangements are the same for everyone in terms of commission structure. And as a result, we've seen, you know, how our numbers are up over 115% this year from, you know, under 200 to over 400 this year. So can you tell us how many applications we have granted, at least for the last year? In terms of, I can tell you what has come in. So there's always a bit of a lag. I do have information on granted. I can get it as well for you. But in terms of files that have come in, we had 195, I believe, last year. And this year we've had 415, if I'm correct, I'm going on a bit of memory here. But, you know, which is an increase of 222 or 115%. And that's files in the door. So then you enter the period of, you know, all of the due diligence that we do. By legislation, we seek to approve files in, you know, less than 90 days. Our average, I would say, has been in the 50 to 64 day range at the moment. And again, we've done a lot of work to, you know, bring that number down. And, you know, so then your application approvals would then lag, you know, the applications coming in the door, if that makes sense. And then as well, important to note is the finances, you know, once the application is approved, the applicant then has a period of time to submit money as well. So the application numbers coming in the door, you know, there is a bit of a lag in terms of when we see it approved and then when we see, you know, the money come in. We're due for a break. When we come back, we'll continue the conversation. We will get a firmer understanding of what the National Economic Fund is and how it works. Stay with us. We'll be back after this break. Thank you for staying with us. And the discussion is with Mr. Ryan Devo. He is the chairman of the board for the Citizenship by Investment program. And before we went to break, we were discussing the number of applications that we've been able to grant. And then we can expand on that in terms of the revenue that has come in as a result. Right. So just to give some numbers there because you asked me. So, you know, we had 193 applications received in the period 2019 to 2020. And in that period, we would have granted 144. So some would have been, you know, in process when the year ended, right? And then for the year 2020 to 2021, which would have just ended in March, we have received 415 applications. And we would have granted 285. Now that may seem like a big difference. But again, the momentum has been building, you know, towards the end of the year. And so those are files now that are in process. In terms of the contribution, I think last year we were about 131 million. If my memory is correct in the annual report. And this year we would have crossed about 204 million since the beginning of the program. So, you know, that's an increase, you know, a fairly significant increase again. And then as I say, you know, the momentum that's there in the pipeline is now going to carry on into the next fiscal year. So overall, you know, we've seen a big shift in terms of the success that the unit has had. But at the same time, we realize there's always work to do and, you know, we're always seeking to figure out how we continue to make it better. So we were discussing earlier, we alluded to the National Economic Fund. And so the one would assume that all of this money, the 131.2 million dollars from last financial year, what we're expecting to be able to accumulate over 200 plus a million. Does all of that money go into the National Economic Fund? Okay, so let me be very clear, Lisa, because there's a lot of questions around the money, right? So when I gave that number of the 204 million, that is from the inception. So that's over five years. Of the five-year period. That's what CIP has contributed to St. Lucia, right? As of last year, it was 131 million. So you're looking at, you know, an increase of about 73 million this year to, you know, to St. Lucia. The National Economic Fund was set up, I believe in January. I forget the dates, but, and as I say, now has a functioning board, has an active bank account and so on. So whereas historically, the funds would have gone to the consolidated fund of St. Lucia. And through the budget process, you know, it was detailed there where those funds were being spent. Now you have those funds going to the National Economic Fund. So there is a separate board that governs the National Economic Fund. The PS of Finance is the chairperson of that board. It is prescribed in the legislation, you know, what the fund can be used for. And there is some level of discretion, but, you know, it notes capital projects. It notes refinancing of debt. It notes buying of St. Lucia bonds or, you know, such other things as ultimately, I guess, the cabinet may decide. But, you know, you now have this National Economic Fund that will be audited and will produce its audited reports. I'm hoping they will follow in, you know, the tradition we've set at CIP, which is that our audits are done every year on time and filed on time. And, you know, again, this is information that should be available to everyone that wants to know about how this operates for the country. And for us, we do have, you know, the qualifying investment options that are there for our applicants. The COVID-19 bond relief, its preliminary time it has been extended till December for 2021. Speak to us about this bond and there was quite an appetite for the COVID-19 relief bond, even over the government bonds, the non-bearing, non-interest bearing bonds. The COVID-19 bonds have been quite a hit in the marketplace. Yeah. So that, I mean, obviously, you know, as a country, we were facing a big drop in revenue. You know, we do have a debt stock, a debt pool, if you want to call it that, that is constantly rolling over. And therefore, you know, you need to find ways to refinance that or pay it off. Ultimately, I think, you know, in the majority of cases it's refinanced. And so again, when we looked at the market, I mean, we had seen that in the very first year, we had had 7 million of subscriptions to our bonds and it had just fallen off. It really hadn't, I think over the remaining years, we'd had one more, one million of further investment into bonds. So, you know, clearly the market was saying the product wasn't, you know, attractive, vis-à-vis the other options that I have. And so, you know, you have COVID come along and, you know, our decision to say, well, you know, we have an economic, you know, serious situation that we need to deal with, how do we make this work for the country? And so that's where, you know, we repositioned the investment amount of the bonds from 500,000 to 250,000 or up to 300, so depending on, you know, how much in your, how many persons in your family and the period you're going to invest for, it's between five or seven years and between 250,000 and 300. And, you know, we've now seen, I think it's 66 applications for that. You know, roughly, I'm going to say 45 million EC, you know, again in the pipeline because some of those applications are being processed that have, you know, has been raised, you know, for the government of Sennucia ultimately to be able to, you know, refinance and so on our existing debt stocks. So I think, again, you know, when we did this, there was uncertainty. Some people said it wouldn't work and, you know, I think we can look back now and say, you know, we tried something and it has worked. And what for the CIP, the approved real estate projects and that is something too that is not completely understood by the public as to how this mechanism works. How much of a success have you had getting these real estate interests out in the market? So you have, at the moment, two active projects that are, and again, you know, there's a process by which these projects would become, you know, eligible to be invested in. So it goes through, you know, maybe just to describe that process quickly. I mean, with investing, Lucia and the CIP unit, we analyze, you know, persons come to us with what they want to do. The numbers are analyzed. You know, we ask for more information. It comes to our board eventually. We decide, we think, you know, this is worthy of further consideration or it's not. If it's worthy of further consideration, it goes up to the cabinet to be considered and ultimately that's where it's approved. So, you know, once it's approved, then it becomes an eligible project. You'll see it listed on our website, for example. So we have the Alpina project, which is part of the SH, and you have the Canels project in Canels, right? Galaxy, you know, the group behind that. And then, you know, so once they've been approved, now, you know, those groups are out in the market selling their projects and persons can invest into those projects. And what we do is set up an escrow account where the funds go and it's, you know, it's stipulated in the escrow agreements when those funds can be used and so on. And the investor, the developer, is then able to use those funds, you know, for those projects in due course. The money does not come to St. Lucia directly. It doesn't come to the National Economic Fund, et cetera. It sits in those escrow. There are fees associated with that option, which is paid into the unit and then ultimately, as I say, to the National Economic Fund or, you know, in terms of, and so for the real estate option, you know, the fee, the administrative fee would be about 30,000. So that's paid in addition to the 300,000 that the investor would pay into the escrow account. And again, we have processes that, you know, monitor what's coming in. We need to know that it's come in before the citizenship can be grant. You know, the passport issue and those sorts of things. So again, there's a lot of control over how all of that works. In our remaining moments, I want to talk about the CIP in terms of the benefits to St. Lucia because, again, you know, that's ability for the public to fully understand what is CIP and how it works and how we can work for the country. But the board firmly believes that the CIP is certainly a sort of, it's a benefit stream for the country. Can you tell us and explain to us why that is? I think perhaps, you know, the first benefit you would look to is the financial, right? I mean, at the end of the day, small economies, you know, managing, you know, typically I'll say for this region as a general, you know, if I use a general analysis, you know, high debt levels, etc. So as I indicated earlier, you know, the ability to refinance debt like through, as we're using the bonds or you could simply use money from the National Economic Fund to pay down existing debt, you would save all of that interest cost that the government has on an ongoing basis, right? To the extent that, you know, the National Economic Fund talks about capital projects. So whether, you know, we're going to build a school, a hospital, a road, you know, whatever we decide, I mean, that's a direct benefit again to the country in terms of, and as I indicated over its five years, you know, it's been 204 million raised for the country. So I think, you know, it's certainly, it's a meaningful contribution to the overall finances and as we continue to grow it, it will become, you know, more and more important. And then, so that's the finance side, right? I hope that's clear in terms of understanding, you know, how St. Lucia benefits. But, you know, you look to now, you know, these are persons that are becoming citizens of our country. You know, some of them have their own businesses have been very successful globally, etc. And I don't think we've done a good enough job at this is, you know, how do we now leverage that to create more goodwill for St. Lucia, to create, you know, whether it's, you know, can we leverage scholarships for our young students? Can we leverage, you know, your business coming into St. Lucia and setting up? And, you know, there are many other pieces of legislation being looked at by the country to try and help do this, like our headquarters at, for example. You know, as I say, you see, you know, what these persons have achieved and done. I think there's opportunity, you know, to bring more of that. Again, from a spin-off impact to the extent some of these persons do come, you know, whatever, buy a home, you know, vacation here, bring friends who then do more, you know, interacting with St. Lucia, you know, your hotels, your, you know, your taxi drivers, your grocery stores, your marinas, all of these things are benefiting. And so I think, you know, the impact can be very meaningful. And indeed, I think when we look at the reports put out by, you know, the international agencies that analyze our economies, they recognize, you know, how important these programs have been to the region. And speaking of that, in the remaining minute that we have, often we've heard Prime Minister Hon. Alan Chastney, who of course is the minister with direct responsibility for the CIP, he has said repeatedly that it's about time that the region considers having an OECS-CIP program. And that is important, I think, on several levels. But he always makes the point that when you have someone who has been granted citizenship in Dominica, then they do have access to St. Lucia like any other OECS national. So from your viewpoint, your vantage point, the benefit of having an OECS-CIP program, very necessary at this time, especially coming out of COVID? Well, I think, you know, St. Lucia is a huge proponent of that. And again, when we drive, you know, the integrity and the transparency that we believe we've demonstrated, we've, you know, done here in St. Lucia, we think that's important for the region. We think it's important for sustainability. When you talk about, you know, due diligence and having a common standard, we fully support it. Our own Nesta Alfred is, you know, chair of the regional committee of the CEOs. And so that is an agenda that we definitely support. You know, you've seen recent traction with the ECCB looking to, you know, try and facilitate some of that. Again, you know, I mean, there's, you know, like any of our organizations, CARICOM, OECS, you know, we've had some successes. We've had parts that haven't worked well. So it's going to take time, but I think it's something just to be clear that St. Lucia fully supports and we would like to see, you know, more of it, you know, into the initiative continue to be pushed. And hopefully, you know, we could achieve meaningful progress. And we hope so too. And we want to thank you very much. It's a Ryan Devoe, who's the chairman of the board for the CIP, the Citizenship by Investment Program, giving us a little insight there into the CIP and coming up on its fifth anniversary, five years of doing wonderful things for St. Lucia, being competitive out there in the global market. And of course, we are beginning to reap a very tangible benefit as a result. This has been Issues and Answers. Thank you so much for watching. I'm Mr. Joseph. Until next time. Thank you.