Mr Eric Major
The Government of Anguilla has demonstrated its seriousness and commitment with respect to its newly-introduced Residency by Investment offering by signing a Memorandum of Understanding with Latitude, a Residence & Citizenship company with offices in Jersey in the Channel Islands and the Cayman Islands.
The MOU, to assist Anguilla with its residency programme, was signed on Friday, September 14, in the Ministry of Finance by Chief Minister, Mr. Victor Banks, on behalf of the Government of Anguilla – and by Mr Eric Major, Founding Partner & CEO of Latitude based in Jersey, along with Mr. Christopher Willis, Managing Director, Americas & Caribbean, based in Grand Cayman.
Chief Minister Banks commented: “The Government of Anguilla is happy to be involved with Latitude in moving this forward. They are substantial players in this kind of programme internationally, and as a consequence we will consider ourselves very fortunate to be able to partner with them in this enterprise.
“The good news is that they are providing all the support for it, both physically and financially, and therefore Government recognizes that this kind of relationship will not have any significant impact on our limited resources financial, human and otherwise. So we think that it is a win-win situation both for the company and ourselves. They are the experts in the industry. They have the network and the systems in place to benefit from this. They know all the players. They have a list of all their clients, I am sure; and they certainly can be helpful for us in trying to derive what we consider very critical to a small island state with fifteen thousand people, the need to be able to develop services and the lack of a large tax base to effect that.
“We cannot survive without foreign direct investment of one kind or the other, and this allows us to share the cost of our development with other persons who have an interest in doing business in Anguilla, or being associated with Anguilla in one way or the other. I just like to say…welcome Mr. Eric Major and Christopher Willis to Anguilla on this occasion for the signing ceremony.”
Responding, Mr. Major stated: “It is a privilege for Chris and I to be here. We are actually representing a consortium of two organizations, Latitude being in the lead, which brought the relationship together. We are in partnership with Autumn Group. Autumn is 20-plus years also in the investment migration states, so collectively both organizations have over an hundred years of experience in promoting these programmes – but also helping establishing them.
“Today, there are a number of countries that have these provisions and offerings in the marketplaces. Over 75 countries have residency by investment programmes, and a smaller growing number of countries of tax residences. Many of them have connections to the UK, as Anguilla does, including my homeland of Jersey and the neighbouring island of Gunsey. So this is not something new, but it is something we think could be brought over to Anguilla to raise foreign direct investment, get people to discover life here on the island and all it has to offer.
“We are really excited over the coming months in preparing the creation of the agency that is going to be representing these programmes, and representing the country overseas. We look forward to this long relationship with your Government.”
Meanwhile, Mrs. Shantelle Richardson, Anguilla’s Director of Economic Planning, had this to say:
“The Government of Anguilla announced a few years ago its interest in pursuing residency as a means of bringing in investment in an effort to give a boost the island’s economy, and over the years we have had private sector engagements.
“We have done a great amount of research, and through that research we came across the company, Latitude, which has a wealth of experience in investment migration and residency. We have been in contact with them over the past few months to see how we can move forward this proposal that Government has, and how they can be of assistance to us. Given their experience, we feel that they were the best company for us to move forward with.
“The signing of this MOU basically formalizes that agreement for us to be able to secure their services and thereby developing, promoting and implementing both aspects of the residency programme for migration purposes and for tax purposes. Officially, this is day one of a relationship we have been working on for quite some time.”
