Current monthly fund registrations in the Cayman Islands are indicating a strong recovery and are running at over 100 new funds a month.
The fund industry is now on track to exceed the previous total of regulated funds by the government.
Anthony Travers OBE, chairman of Cayman Finance, released the figures following a recent comment in the UK media that the Cayman Islands will “wither on the vine” through lack of investment.
Travers says the Cayman Islands is flourishing in the current economic climate. The figures released by the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority illustrate that, at the current rates of net monthly increase, there would be in excess of 10,200 fund registrations by the financial year end.
Travers was speaking after recent reports described Cayman’s future as bleak. He says these reports “are surprising and fly in the face of the statistics“, noting that company incorporations for 2010 against 2009 were also showing a robust upward trend with increases of over 14 per cent for Q1 and 24 per cent for Q2.
“It is more helpful to report on the actual numbers rather than the wishful thinking on the part of competitor jurisdictions,” he says.
Travers believes Cayman is in the perfect position to benefit from the capital gains tax increase in the UK. With CGT going up to 28 per cent increasing number of investors are looking to move to Cayman.
“We have said all along that punitive tax measures in the UK and the rest of Europe will drive individuals and companies offshore,” he says.
“Whilst we welcome this we are continually saddened that there is still a hard-line group of EU politicians who cannot grasp that low taxes stimulate economies and high taxes do exactly the opposite by creating less of everything, including very often, tax revenue. That is the basis for the success of the Cayman model.”
