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Lowtax
Network Content Update | Issue XXXI | 17 April 2008 |
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Offshore
Belize is centrally located in the Americas Belize is an independent country within the Commonwealth bordered by Mexico, the Caribbean and Guatemala to the east and south. It is 24,000 sq km in size, with a population of 275,000. The country is, or was, heavily forested. The climate is nearly tropical, and there can be hurricanes. The extremely mixed population is racially harmonious. English is the official language and the main religion is Christianity. The currency is the Belizean dollar, fixed at BZ$2 = US$1. Sugar and bananas represent a difficulty for the centrist Government... In Belize's bi-cameral Westminster-style government, the lower house was most recently elected in 2003 and the government is tackling economic problems caused reduced access to privileged markets for sugar and bananas by encouraging foreign investment in manufacturing and the development of mass tourism. The country's structural deficit can only be financed by overseas borrowing, but the Government hopes for debt relief for existing loans. GDP growth was 3.1% in 2005. In October 2004, the government began implementing a significant tightening of fiscal policy. This has resulted in a reduction in the country’s overall deficit to 3.1% in fiscal year 2005/2006. By August 2006, Prime Minister Said Musa announced that the servicing of the country's debt, which accounts for 90% of its GDP, was "no longer a viable option" on existing terms, leading to a rearrangement of Belize’s US$900 million external debt stock. Learn more in our full Belize Knowledgebase. |
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Offshore
The state of St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) is in the Caribbean, 1,600 miles southeast of Miami and 100 miles from Barbados. SVG consists of a group of 18 small islands, of which the biggest is St Vincent, with the capital, Kingstown, which has a natural deep-water harbour. St Vincent is a lush volcanic island, just 18 miles north to south and 11 miles wide; the climate is tropical. Fought over for nearly a century by the French and British, sovereignty of SVG was settled on the British in 1783. Now SVG is an independent parliamentary democracy, with a legal system based on common law. The currency is the Eastern Caribbean Dollar (EC$) which is linked to the US$ at an exchange rate of 2.7 EC$ to 1 US$ (2006), and is managed by the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank with headquarters in St. Kitts. The population of the islands was estimated in July 2007 to be around 118,149. The economy moved from dependence on sugar to dependence on bananas; but tourism is now the biggest earner, and the government has been trying hard to build a financial services centre. Economic growth was dented by a combination of climatic problems, 9/11 and the need to rein in a free-wheeling financial services sector to placate the OECD and FATF. The government which took office in April 2001 and was re-elected in 2005 implemented an ambitious framework of policy reforms designed to strengthen the public finances, achieve higher growth, lower unemployment and reduce poverty. The Offshore Finance Authority (now renamed the International Financial Services Authority) was created by Parliament to institute a new system to manage, direct, control and supervise the offshore financial services industry in SVG. After a number of closures in 2001, the sector now seems to be growing in a stable fashion. Key sectors are banking, trusts, insurance and mutual funds. In September 2005, there were estimated to be around 7,800 International Business Companies. Historically, SVG has provided a high degree of confidentiality for investors, although an Exchange of Information Act passed in 2002 has qualified this to a certain extent. Cable and Wireless provides telecommunications services in SVG; however the Government has liberalized the telecommunications market and two additional companies have been given licenses for mobile services. Digicel is currently suing Cable & Wireless for allegedly impeding its progress in introducing competing telecoms offerings. Learn more in our full St. Vincent and the Grenadines Knowledgebase. |
