St. Kitts and Nevis - Infrastructure, power, and communications



The road infrastructure in the islands is adequate though underdeveloped, with 320 kilometers (199 miles) of roads of which 136 kilometers (84 miles) are paved. There are 58 kilometers (36 miles) of railway track on St. Kitts for transporting sugarcane only. A deep-water port was opened in Basseterre in 1981, and more recently, the government has invested in cruise ship facilities in the capital, creating the Port Zante terminal that can receive 2 cruise ships at once. Other ports and harbors are less developed, and in Nevis there is only a small jetty at Charlestown. The main airport, R.L. Bradshaw International, is near Basseterre and can handle international flights. Nevis, on the other hand, has only a small airport and receives most of its tourists through St. Kitts, another source of friction between the 2 islands. The main focus for tourist infrastructure is now St. Kitts' southeast peninsula, where there are several large resorts. Much of the island, however, is undeveloped in tourism terms, but there are several hotels and guesthouses in former plantation houses.

St. Kitts and Nevis has no natural power resources and is obliged to import fuel, mostly oil from Trinidad and Tobago, for electricity generation. According to the CIA Handbook, electricity generation in 1998 was 85 million kilowatt hours (kWh) and consumption was 79 million kWh. Telecommunications have improved in recent years, with widespread access to telephones and growing use of cellular phones and the Internet. There are no recent statistics, however, regarding telecommunications.

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