New company and partnership formations and registrations of funds have pushed up government revenues in the first seven months of this year.
Although licensing activity trails last year’s record statistics, company and partnership formations and private fund registrations continue to grow.
Financial services fees collected by the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority through July on behalf of government were $4.4 million higher than expected. While securities and investment business licences generated $1.7 million less revenue than budgeted, this was more than offset by the positive variance of other fees.
Mutual fund administrators licence fee revenue was $3.7 million higher and private funds fees brought in $3.5 million more as a result of a higher-than-expected increase in the volume of registered funds for the seven-month period.
The number of mutual funds increased by 1.7% and the number of private funds has grown by 4.5% so far this year. Securities and investment business licences, in contrast, saw a 4.2% decline.
Financial services fees collected by General Registry through July were $2.8 million higher than anticipated, which was mainly due to a favourable variance in partnership fees.
The 3,097 new partnership formations for the year to date are slightly behind last year’s activity but exceeded registrations during the same periods in 2019 and 2020. The figure also significantly exceeds partnership terminations, meaning that the number of partnerships on the register has increased by more than 2,000 this year.
New company registrations (8,002) for the year to date are also trailing 2021 activity but are well ahead of 2020 and on par with the same period in 2019.
On a net basis, after deducting terminations (3,669), the number of active companies on the register has grown by 4,333 this year.
New trust registrations are also up this year and on par with the same period in 2020.
In addition to higher financial services fee revenues, government collected $6.6 million more from work permits and $18.5 million greater from property transactions.
Finance Minister Chris Saunders said in a press release, “The July year-to-date numbers follow the same trend seen in the first half of the financial year, with the collected fees showing continued confidence in our financial services sector as well as strong and continued growth in the real estate sector.
“Cayman Islands real estate continues to be a popular investment in tandem with ongoing and new development projects. We have also seen growth in work permit revenue over the prior year, which indicates that local businesses are in recovery mode after the suppressive effects of the pandemic, and are now staffing up to their full complements.”
Through July central government recorded a surplus of $143.9 million, which is $18.9 million more than projected for the year to date. For the entire public sector, including statutory authorities and government-owned companies, the surplus $129.6 million is $25.2 million larger than expected.
Revenues were $38.2 million higher than budgeted, amounting to $695.4 million, while $532.3 million in expenses also exceeded forecasts by $19.2 million.
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