Cyprus has been carrying out one of the most sought after citizenship-by-investment programs in the world since the year 2013. That could soon be coming to its final stage.
Generally termed as a “golden passport” Immigration Investors Program in Cyprus, the scheme allows citizenship to foreign investors who are willing to spend €2 million ($2.34 million) in this small Mediterranean island country. It is known to take around 90 days. The passport enables investors to live and work in any European Union country, perform business activities in the country with the low corporate tax rate of 12.5%, and relish over 300 days of sunshine a year.
As of now, the Cypriot government is pacing it down. A string of changes give more scrutiny to the application process. Beginning from August 1, new applicants will have to wait for six months to obtain the passport application examined and approved—augmenting almost double what it takes now.
The Cypriot government is striving to bounce criticism that the program enables corruption and money laundering. It revoked the name of the program from “Cyprus Citizenship by Investment” to “Cyprus Investment Programme.” It also laid out new rules (pdf) that forbid references of “fast track procedure”, “sale of passports” or “acquisition of European citizenship” from being touted as benefits of the Immigration Investors Program in Cyprus in advertising or promotional elements.
An annual restriction of 700 passport approvals to primary applicants will also be put on the program, but that’s not supposed to hinder the program soon, as the number wasn’t achieved in any previous year. Cyprus Business Mail reported that the government issued 503 passports to investors in 2017.
The Cyprus citizenship-by-investment program has been in run since 2002. Before 2013, however, investors had to introduce with a minimum of €10 million for a passport. After this, the decrease in its economy during the global financial slowdown, Cyprus reduced the minimum investment requirement to €3 million in 2013. It kicked off the fast-track process to citizenship, as an endeavour to secure foreign money in the national bank. Cyprus dropped the investment requirement to €2 million in September 2016. At those rates the program has fuelled billion in investment, exhibiting a major portion of the country’s economy.
According to the suggested law, auditing firms, legal firms and other agencies giving citizenship by investment services will be needed to execute their affairs to public evaluation. Moreover, the law will also require all those working in public life to reveal details of their ownership stakes in such businesses.
These changes to Immigration Investors Program in Cyprus are expected to enhance transparency and decrease the threat of service providers taking benefit of their nearby relations with politicians to evade the requirements and conditions of the citizenship by investment program.
With the Cyprus recovery attaining power, these programs, besides others like the ones given by Portugal, Spain and Greece, are supposed to become more high-class, with improved focus on factors other than incursion of foreign direct investment.
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