The global rich are now buying a new form of economic
security: passport.
Wealthy investors from around the world are increasingly
shopping for visas or citizenship in other countries, hoping for a personal
hedge against their own volatile governments or economies. A vast majority are
new millionaires and billionaires from emerging-market countries, especially
China, Russia and nations in the Middle East. Often, they’re shopping for
passports or entree into Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia.
Experts estimate that these “economic citizens” are spending
$2 billion a year on second or third passports and visas. Demand is so strong
that governments around the world have started an arms race of sorts for V.I.P.
visas, offering ever-faster residencies and passports for ever-higher prices.
Over the past year, Australia, Canada, Britain and several other European
countries have raised the prices or investment requirements of their so-called
golden visas and created a new fast lane for citizenship.
In January, Malta started selling citizenship for a fee of
650,000 euros (more than $800,000) with no residency requirements. In the first
six months, more than 200 investors signed up, earning the government $200
million. Because Malta is a European Union member, citizenship also gives
holders the ability to travel and settle within the European Union’s 28
countries.
Australia recently
announced plans for a Premium Investor visa, nicknamed the platinum visa. That
nation already has a golden visa, called the Significant Investor visa, which
offers permanent residency after four years in exchange for an investment of 5
million Australian dollars ($4.15 million). More than 436 visas have been
granted under the program, bringing in more than 2 billion Australian dollars
in investments. The new program will give faster residency (in just 12 months)
in return for 15 million Australian dollars in investments.
In Britain, an investor visa program gives residency for 2
million pounds ($3.14 million); applicants are eligible for “indefinite leave
to remain” after five years. But the government recently added fast-track
programs for people who invest £5 million (requiring a wait of only three
years) and £10 million (a wait of two years). Half of the visas go to Russians
and Chinese.
In the United States, the investor-visa program called EB-5
has been so popular that it has hit its cap of 10,000 visas this year, for the
first time since 1990. The program awards visas to foreigners willing to invest
at least $500,000 in approved projects. An investor who can show that a project
creates or preserves at least 10 jobs can get a green card and eventual
citizenship. More than 80 percent of the applications are from Chinese
investors.
“Wealthy people in fragile countries want to have a second
option in a more stable country,” said Christian H. Kalin, group chairman of
Henley & Partners, a citizenship advisory firm based in London. “The
wealthy already diversify their assets for protection. Now they want to make
sure their residency is diversified as well. Why not have a portfolio of
passports, too?”
Some say they have the potential to offer safe harbor to
people who made their fortune through corruption or illegal activities. But one
thing is for sure, those who really do require a safe haven and refuge, those who
are fleeing war, hunger and economic hardships, do not receive the same
welcome. And those xenophobics who decry immigration because it is “changing
the face of the nation” ignore that large parts of the country has become
unaffordable for locals to live in because of those oligarchs buying up the property.
1 comment:
What is wrong with europeans? In Germany, an impacting wave of crowded protests against immigrants has emerged, and nationalist parties have been clearly showing support for them and promising to canalize their revolt. In England, David Cameron is succumbing to the pressures of the racist segment of the population. In Sweden, some occurrences of racism and xenophobia have been exposed. Meanwhile, in America, Occupy Wall Street flourished recently and in few years has prospered as a movement and disseminated its message worldwide. The level of xenophobia in America remained more steady than imagined.
Why is that? I don't think it is reasonable to believe that europeans are more susceptible to mass media manipulation. Neither should we believe that America is exempt of xenophobia. But when we overlook the most significant social phenomena that befell both places in the last 5 years, we can see that the european mass did not evoke the its rebellious instinct against the current economic system, while in America, Occupy Wall Street has been a revolutionary movement that permeated the masses there.
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