PM Browne Urges Locals to Invest in Growing Hospitality Sector
St John’s, Antigua – Prime Minister Gaston Browne is calling on Antigua and Barbuda’s middle and upper class to take a more active role in national development by investing in the country’s expanding hospitality industry.
Speaking at a recent Chamber of Commerce event, Browne said while the government has successfully attracted substantial foreign investment, local ownership remains limited.
“We’re creating beautiful waterfront and beach properties,” he said, inviting domestic investors to take advantage of upcoming developments at Pensioners Beach, Morris Bay, and Shell Beach.
He criticised the reluctance of some locals—particularly Black Antiguans and Barbudans—to invest, noting that many prefer to “sit in [their] big bank accounts” and then complain when foreigners act instead. He rejected claims of bias in government concessions, stating they are based on investment size, not nationality or race.
To encourage greater local participation, the government will offer incentives such as duty-free concessions on building materials and furnishings. Interested individuals can register through the National Housing office.
“We will try and keep the price of land down,” he said, while clarifying that prices will reflect their prime locations and not be sold at rural rates.
Browne also highlighted new infrastructure projects, including a renewable energy plant in Barbuda, a planned airport runway expansion to accommodate American Airlines jets, and the country’s strong post-pandemic economic performance. Since 2014, GDP has grown from $3.8 billion to $6 billion, with annual growth averaging over 6% since COVID-19.
He concluded with a direct appeal: “If you fail to act, you’re discriminating against yourselves.”
Advertise with the mоѕt vіѕіtеd nеwѕ ѕіtе іn Antigua!
We offer fully customizable and flexible digital marketing packages.
Contact us at [email protected]
Middle and upper class but nothing is done for those in the lower class. They’re just set to pay higher taxes while living from pay check to pay check? Waw
Man just looking ways to have more money in his pocket.
I hope Antiguans are listening
No PM, they prefer the 0 per cent the bank gives them on as interest
International investors get incentives etc. Are any of these available for the local investors who want to invest but don’t meet the financial criteria?
If trump continues to have his way we may soon not even have a hospitality sector
Then leave the beach front lands and don’t give the best to the white man, and leave Barbuda lands to the council and encourage them to place local barbudans on the beach with boutique hotel built by tax money the council collects as loan to local barbudans, and you Gaston should do that on Antigua, stop empower white monopoly capital domination, you are diametrically opposed to what you are saying.
Invest in a sector that only a certain ethnicity gets al the benefits, theg don’t even pay fairly black people always getting short changed..
GDP don’t mean anything, it literally be 6 people with a billion dollar business. I love how he always quote how rich Antigua is while selling passports to day an Antiguan inventor is doing so and so, if Antigua is so rich what is being done with it for the masses? only elites can afford to buy property for hospitality when a lot can’t even build their first house
Gatson Browne..you talk a lot, but you don’t listen.
Let me give you a clue on good governance.
Here.. you cannot set the real estate price for locals with the same prices as foreigners,you just can’t.Those very same lands and areas you call premium, are the very same lands that Antiguan’s grew up on and was privy to before the so-called expats came.
You can’t follow that same market for the locals, because the areas you consider premium, are only premium to those expats who didn’t grow up on pristine beaches, and would like to keep it all to themselves by driving up the market out of the reach of locals.
So good governance is to allow your people to be privileged to those very areas as it was before the so-called expats came.
All Antiguan’s should be able to afford any area to build if they want, after all, it’s their country.
And that goes for any island or country in the world, but no, politicians who have been put into office are busy filling their pockets with the corrupt money that is dangled in front of them by these crooks that come to our shores.
It’s time Antigua go back to been owned by Antiguan’s, or at least be welcomed to the table in their rightful way.
That’s good governance Gatson Browne.
Not just talk talk.
This invitation sound genuine,but when the application time comes will the national get the same treatment as the investment citizens it seems that we are always been asked for extra things that investment citizens don’t have to show.