The former Antiguan prime minister, Lester Bird, is giving conditional support to his country’s citizenship by investment programme. “And I don’t want to go against the leader of my party, but the question of passports is a very ticklish one, but I am not going to be against it in totality because I think my party and my leader have taken a position that he is going to accept it,”

Bird told WINN FM. Despite this, Bird argues that the programme is a competitive one expected to grab its fair share of the market.

He says that could impact on the St Kitts and Nevis programme. “Antigua has a lot of assets as a country which I don’t think St Kitts has … I would think Antigua would offer a lot of competition in that area,” the former prime minister said.

“St Kitts may find itself not totally alone in this thing and therefore the competition will therefore, the competition would in fact cause Antigua to give them competition,” Bird said. Available data suggests that the cost of St Kitts and Nevis citizenship can be either a non refundable charity donation of minimum US$ 250,000 to the Sugar Industry Diversification Foundation,or designatedrecoverable Real Estate Investment with a value of at least US$ 400,000. Antiguan citizenship carries a cost similar to that of the federation’s.