2025 Budget highlights at a glance

No new taxes or increase in taxes were announced in the 2025 Budget. However, Minister of Finance, Camillo Gonsalves listed a number of activities/projects/initiatives that will be started or completed this year, when he presented the 2025 Appropriations Bill in Parliament on the afternoon of Monday, January 13, 2025.

Among the budget highlights are:

• Increase civil servant salaries by 2.5% (the third payment to public sector employees worked out with their respective bargaining agents).
• Completion of the $668 million Modern Kingstown Cargo Port
• Construction of no fewer than 1000 houses for persons who were affected by the volcanic eruptions in 2021 and by Hurricane Beryl on July 1, 2024.
• Distribution of $30 million in income support to farmers, fishers and other vulnerable Vincentians.
• Complete the Barouallie Black Fish Processing Centre.
• Advance construction on the Modern Arrowroot Factory at Orange Hill.
• Build more than 70 stretches of road state-wide.
• Advance construction of the Arnos Vale Acute Care Hospital
• Start semi professional netball and football leagues.
• Launch the FAST Fund to support
  Olympic athletes’ quest for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
• Launch a National Orchestra
• Launch GIVE- a youth volunteer organization.
• Launch a dedicated programme to provide free transportation to persons with disabilities.
•  Commence construction of a vendors’ market in Georgetown, and expand the shops at Glen.
• Pilot a Mathematics support programme to provide additional support in maths for primary and secondary school students.
• Begin construction of the Marriott Resort at Mt Wynne.
• Begin construction of the Sandy Bay;
• Thomas Saunders; and Brighton Secondary Schools, the Kingstown Anglican School; and Grimble Hall at the GHS.
• Begin the construction of cultural, educational and wellness and production hubs at Bell Vue, Park Hill, Troumaca, and Petit Bordel
• Provide 2600 laptops for Community College and secondary school students.
•  Install lights and a warm up track at the Sir Vincent Beache Stadium at Diamond.
• Begin construction of a Modern Parliament Building at Beachmont.
• Begin or complete construction of 11 clinics.
• Conduct targeted and sustained police operations against criminals, and initiate community policing in high risk areas.
• Welcome a record number of visitors to St Vincent and the Grenadines
• Deliver another year of robust economic growth and greater employment opportunities.

These measures were outlined in the preamble to the 2025 Budget presentation.

Minister Gonsalves also noted that “Budget 2025 is crafted in the shadows of Hurricane Beryl’s cataclysmic landfall in St Vincent and the Grenadines.”