The August total for successful Golden Visa applications in Portugal was just 35 but this did see the sale of real estate worth €19.6 million making the agents involved very happy indeed.
A further €2 million was spent on qualifying investments allowed more wealthy foreigners to enjoy a tax free existence in Portugal while the rest of her citizens have no similar opportunity.
Portugal's Foreigners and Borders Service which is running the scheme, despite their former chief having been arrested on suspicion of corruption in Operation Labyrinth, are now following new rules introduced on September 3rd to stamp out back-handers and dodgy dealings, hopefully.
Last November's arrests of many of those involved in running the Golden Visa scheme did not help numbers but Chinese buyers are still way out in front in the league tables for Golden Visas, followed by Brazil and then Russia.
So delighted are the Chinese in the way the scheme has worked in their favour in Portugal, the government back home has decided to run its own ‘Golden Visa’ scheme to attract foreign investment to the People’s Republic whose economy recently has suffered sharp decline.
The Chinese government is looking at ways of stimulating investment in its economy by opening up sectors currently closed to foreign investment.
This move aims to ‘build an open, fair and well regulated market so that companies can take independent decisions and participate in fair competition,’ and at the same time the wise ones want to attract foreign talent permanently to live in China.
These visas, albeit not as ‘golden’ as the Portuguese variety, will be assigned to workers taking up posts in research centers, in engineering and in high-tech enterprises that have been operating for at least four years.
The permanent residence visa will give beneficiaries "the same rights as those of Chinese citizens in areas such as investment, buying property and the education of their children,” the authorities announced.
These and other measures were decided at a meeting of the Committee on Reform and Development which does the bidding of President Xi Jinping.
"China will make unremitting efforts to attract foreign investment and technology and to open up the country” said the president himself.
