Section 01 · The Project
The São Tomé Financial Centre Initiative
A pro bono engagement by Byblos Research & Advisory, 2025 and 2026.
São Tomé, 2026. With H.E. President Carlos Vila Nova.
Across 2025 and 2026, Byblos Research & Advisory developed a complete legislative framework for the establishment of a financial centre in São Tomé and Príncipe. The engagement was conducted pro bono in support of a government-led initiative to position the country as a financial services jurisdiction for the Lusophone world and the broader West African region.
The work produced two parallel architectures. The first, Track A, set out a full financial centre regime comprising a decree law and an accompanying assembleia law. It established a fully regulated economic zone with its own legal system, fiscal regime, immigration pathway, and supervisory structure. The second, Track B, took a different design path. Rather than requiring new legislation, Track B was designed so that the government could activate the framework using executive powers already conferred on it under existing law. By applying more than sixty current São Toméan statutes in combination, it produced a staged free zone with a defined graduation path to the full regime in Track A.
One piece of legal architecture inside Track B is worth noting. The activation instrument would ordinarily sit with the Director-General of State Property. Track B was structured instead to place the signature with the Prime Minister. The substitution moves the act up the executive hierarchy, giving it political standing and durability proportionate to what it activates, without any new legislation being required.
The dual-track design reflects a particular view of small-state financial development. A jurisdiction should not have to choose between getting it right and getting it done. Track B allows a state to begin within its existing law, generate operating evidence, and legislate the fuller regime once that evidence is in hand.
Byblos Research & Advisory acknowledges the leadership and openness of H.E. President Carlos Vila Nova and His Excellency Prime Minister Américo Ramos, who engaged with the project in good faith and demonstrated the kind of forward-thinking vision such an undertaking requires. We hope that São Tomé and Príncipe, in whatever form and at whatever pace best serves the country, brings something of this ambition to fruition.
The initiative did not advance to implementation in its current form. Byblos Research & Advisory is releasing the complete framework into the public domain so that the substantive work serves the small-state development community more broadly.