The Cayman Islands, a flourishing offshore banking center, said Friday its per-capita income had reached $25,300 - topping that of the United States and Canada and the other nations in the Western Hemisphere.
Economic growth last year in the Cayman Islands, a British dependency of around 26,000 people in the Caribbean, was 4.4 percent, the government statistics office said.The increase boosted the gross national product to $670 million, it said.
An important offshore financial center, the Cayman Islands has more than 540 registered banks with deposits totaling $450 billion.
The Cayman Islands, three tiny dots on the Caribbean map, used to be a poverty-stricken dependency of Jamaica which, in turn, belonged to Britain. In 1962, Jamaica gained independence and the Caymans chose to remain a colony.
The new government drafted laws tailor-made for banks, trusts and corporations seeking relief from harsh taxation and strict regulation elsewhere in the world.
In 1991, its $25,300 per capita income was higher than that of the United States, which was $19,082 last year, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.
Canada had a $18,635 per capita income in 1990, according to a U.N. development program study.
Bermuda, another British dependency, has a per-capita income of $21,000, according to the Bermuda tourist agency in New York.