by Linda Straker
- 2024 very successful year because of back logging of Russian applications
- Over 10,000 people approved through CBI from July 2022 to September 2024
- IMA data shows 4,861 people approved between January and September 2024
Fewer than 600 applications are expected to be submitted to the Citizenship by Investment (CBI) for processing for 2025 because of Grenada’s decision to stop accepting Russians to the programme.
“2024 has been a very successful year surpassing 2023 because of the final conclusion and backlogging of the Russian applications,” Richard Duncan, Chairman of the CBI Committee.
Speaking at the conclusion of site inspection/visits to 5 CBI tourism-related projects, he said that the applications will now reflect the amount that was received before the Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war which began in 2022.
Within weeks of the Russia/Ukraine war, Grenada suspended applications from Russia and Belarus but it was lifted shortly after. Grenada became the only country in the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) with CBI programmes to accept Russian applications.
“We always like to tell people that in 2025 things will be nothing like 2024 or 2023 it will go back to pre-pandemic, pre-Ukraine war level applications, which is about 550 per year,” he told reporters at the conclusion of the site visits.
Held earlier in December, the site visits gave members of the CBI Committee, the management team at the CBI office and the media an opportunity to observe the level of work being done at each site.
Following the Ukraine war, Grenada received hundreds of Russian applications to the programme. Between July 2022 and September 2024, over 10,000 people were approved through the programme. This resulted in Government earning approximately EC$900 million.
Data from the Citizenship by Investment Unit recently rebranded as the Investment Migration Agency (IMA), show the period of January to September 2024 saw the cabinet approving 4,861 while for the period of January to December 2023 the number was 4,764. For July to December 2022, the number was 714. The total from July 2022 to September 2024 is 10,339.
We are selling our Soverignity because 1. Our productivity is low and we have no plan to improve it, 2. We have no idea how to boost productive sector export earnings (e.g. cococoa prices are over US$11,000 per tonne but we have no cocoa to sell), 3. We have not identified any new growth sectors for the economy and 4. We have no coherent national plan to boost our Human Resoure capacity.
What happens, when, in a few years, we have sold citizenships to more than 25,000 foreigners (we have already passed 10,000)? So. What we are going to have is over 25,000 “new citizens” who have tax benefits and privileges that native Greadians do not have but with the right to vote and influence our political, social and economic future. Right?