I am concerned that the new NDP administration sees the sale of passports as its primary revenue source with which to reduce the national debt and finance the operations of the government.
I was hoping that the new PM would focus on establishing forms of productive investment which could produce goods and services for export. Selling off the family silver (be in passports or Crown lands) will not solve the problem. One reason is that once the sale of passport begins, the government will find it impossible to get off that ferret wheel, with the result that even if a tiny percentage of buyers chose to exercise their right to vote, the local people will be relegated to minority status. Further, at the end of it all, the productive capacity within the island would remain unaltered.
If the PM wishes to bring productive investment to SVG he must first negotiate a tax treaty with Taiwan, using the Canada/Barbados treaty as a template. Such a treaty could even be multilateral so as to include St Kitts and St Lucia. Under such a treaty, enterprises in Taiwan could make SVG a suitable location for light manufacturing, especially for export to the USA under the Caribbean Basin Initiative.
One industry that could derive significant benefits from such a tax treaty is that of fishing. Taiwanese fishers could use their sophisticated fleets to extract the fruits of SVG waters, land their catch and process it here. A high quality processing and manufacturing fishing plant could be founded on the back of such an initiative.Vincentians could learn the skills of management, production and marketing which would emerge from such activity.
Taiwanese firms in the agricultural sector could also take advantage of such a treaty, by bringing their expertise in the management of green houses for the production of fruits, vegetables and flowers for local consumption and export.
I do hope that the new administration sees the potential of developing real productive capacity in SVG rather than relying on fast money schemes which are not underpinned by real economic activity and the enhancement of human and physical capital in the island.