St. Vincent lines up a 30-year cruise-port deal, and cuts the price of gas

Kingstown is set to hand its cruise terminal to the world's largest cruise-port operator, while the government trims the pump price of gasoline.

KINGSTOWN. St. Vincent and the Grenadines is preparing to put its main cruise gateway in the hands of the world's largest operator of such ports. The government will sign an agreement with Global Ports Holding for the Kingstown Cruise Terminal, a 30-year concession involving up to 250 million Eastern Caribbean dollars in phased investment, iWitness News reported on October 22, 2026, with the signing set for Monday, October 26. A memorandum of understanding was signed in July.

The deal was announced in Parliament by the tourism minister, Kishore Shallow, with the prime minister, Godwin Friday, due to provide further details. Global Ports Holding, described by iWitness News as the world's largest cruise-port operator, already manages terminals in the Bahamas and in San Juan, Puerto Rico, which places St. Vincent within a growing network rather than at its edge. The figure of 250 million dollars and the description of the company as the largest in its field are the paraphrase of the minister's remarks in Parliament, which the Ledger attributes accordingly.

The cruise numbers behind the deal show why the government wants the investment. The terminal handled 231 calls and about 247,000 passengers in the 2024 to 2025 season and 246 calls and about 239,000 passengers in 2025 to 2026, iWitness News reported, with the 2026 to 2027 season projected at 355 calls and roughly 344,000 passengers. A jump of that size requires a terminal built to receive it, and a 30-year concession is the standard instrument for getting a private operator to pay for the upgrade in exchange for the long-term revenue.

On the same day in Parliament, the prime minister turned to the cost of fuel. Friday announced a cut in the pump price of gasoline from 18.31 to 17.29 Eastern Caribbean dollars a gallon, a reduction of 1.02, effective Monday. "That is a big reduction of 1.02 dollars per gallon," he said, according to iWitness News.

The news was not uniformly good: diesel rose slightly, from 17.53 to 17.57 dollars at the pump, and low-sulfur diesel rose from 17.40 to 17.73. "For diesel, unfortunately, we move a little bit in the wrong direction," Friday conceded.

Energy costs remain the pressure point. The state utility VINLEC saw its fuel surcharge rise to 86.71 cents despite a subsidy of 798,000 dollars, iWitness News reported on October 20, a reminder that even as the government trims the price of a gallon of gasoline, the cost of generating electricity keeps climbing. The cruise concession is a bet on the long term, a visitor economy built to receive a third of a million passengers a year.

The fuel figures are the short term, the weekly arithmetic of a small island economy that imports its energy and feels every move in the price. On Monday, St# Vincent will sign for the first and keep paying for the second.