By L.K. Hewlett
St. Kitts Reporter
Small hotels and similar enterprises in St. Kitts and Nevis are looking forward to implementation of additional fiscal concessions approved by Cabinet this week.
According to Monday’s post-Cabinet briefing, government reviewed, discussed and approved a number of concessions for hotels and related businesses.
“These concessions were given in accordance with the Hotels Aid Act which empowers the government to consider the economic impact of hotels and related businesses and to assist in and facilitate the development of the tourism sector,” it stated in the brief.
Other businesses are also benefiting from duty concessions as government implemented a new policy in January this year that introduced two main classes of duty free stores in the country.
This policy allows or certain items to be imported ‘duty free’, but several stakeholders have raised issues concerning the approved items.
As such, Cabinet has approved the creation of a standing committee consisting of members of the public and private sectors to review the present concerns and to make recommendations relating to the issues. This new committee will also be charged with the monitoring of the duty free policy that is already in effect.
Some small business owners conveyed disapproval of the fact that certain businesses were granted concessions when some were not. These entrepreneurs said that concessions given should be applied across the board and not localized to individual businesses. Government has not disclosed which businesses will receive the duty concessions nor which items were on the approved concession list.
