In our globalised world, small countries often share distinct advantages and disadvantages when compared to bigger economic rivals.

In particular, their challenges relate to lower economies of scale, and traditionally less diversification and macroeconomic policy autonomy. Yet on the other hand, smaller nations generally benefit from certain political advantages that are geared towards greater cohesion and flexibility – recognised as important determinants of the investment climate and economic growth.

Malta, a tiny island-nation in the Mediterranean, and the smallest European Union member state, has played to these strengths marvellously in recent years, positioning itself as the bloc’s fastest growing country. Indeed, it has done so using its small size to its considerable benefit.

Owing to Malta’s geographical limitations, its economy has needed to be flexible to compete. But it’s also down to its small size, and the government’s philosophy to openly embrace digital disruption, that it has been quicker to adapt than most – leading to the recent creation of genuine world-leading industries in the emerging spheres of iGaming and Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT).

It’s this openness to modernise and internationalise the economy that not only helped Malta address one of its inherent economic challenges – diversification – but also led to an explosion in foreign investment, and the island-nation’s impressive GDP growth.

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The Financial Times wealth management branch, Professional Wealth Management (PWM), has released the 2019 CBI Index, revealing the top five global citizenship by investment programmes to be in the Caribbean.

Dominica broke records with the highest ever score on the Index (91%), whilst St Kitts and Nevis and Grenada followed closely behind with scores of 89% and 87% respectively. St Lucia leapt to fourth place from fifth last year and scored 84%, while Antigua and Barbuda dropped one place to achieve 79%.

Overall, it was the combination of “extensive due diligence with efficiency, speed, affordability, and reliability” that brought Dominica to the top spot, states the Index.
“St Kitts and Nevis also maintained its upward trajectory regarding visa-free and visa-on-arrival offerings and continued to demonstrate its commitment to enhanced due diligence,” scoring particularly well under ‘Citizenship Timeline’ due to its unique Accelerated Application Process (AAP). Grenada too benefitted “from its improved citizenship timeline, after the significant slowdown in 2018.”

“St Lucia surpassed Antigua and Barbuda for the first time,” with experts citing freedom of movement, speed, and due diligence as vital factors.

A total of 13 countries were examined in this year’s study, carried out by independent researcher James McKay: Antigua and Barbuda, Austria, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Cyprus, Dominica, Grenada, Jordan, Malta, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, Turkey, and Vanuatu.

Overall, the central industry trends of transparency, experience, and enhanced security saw the Caribbean nations carry their success from past years into 2019, outperforming their peers in five out of seven pillars.

Jordan was the lowest scoring (51%), just behind Austria and Cambodia, which jointly scored 54%.

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