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New Zealand is seeking to attract more wealthy investors by relaxing rules related to so-called golden visas, removing English requirements and reducing the number of days applicants will take in the country.
“Golden Visa” has long been used to attract wealthy people to smaller economies, but European countries including Spain, Portugal and Ireland have canceled plans related to real estate purchases in recent years due to rising real estate prices. .
New Zealand has made this trend part of a center-right government’s plan to promote foreign investment in countries suffering from recession.
“We need to say more, there is much less in New Zealand,” Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said in a press conference on Sunday.
If a possible investor is willing to invest 5 million New Zealand (US$2.8 million) directly into the country’s businesses, he or she can apply for a visa.
Applicants only need to spend 21 days in New Broccoli within three years to obtain residence rights, while applicants have 117 days in the four years of the previous year.
The visa is also applicable to those who are willing to invest at least 10 million New Zealanders within five years and live in the country for 105 days.
The country’s immigration minister Erica Stanford told local media that some international investors have found that the long-standing requirement for living in the country was to be “closed.”
New Zealand has long been looking for wealthy investors to strengthen its economic development.
This caused friction in 2017, as billionaire Peter Thiel donated to Donald Trump’s campaign, but was secretly kept under investigation despite not meeting eligibility criteria New Zealand citizenship was granted. Thiel plans to establish a risk fund in the country.
The former government, led by Jacinda Ardern, tightened rules on investment visas in 2022 in an attempt to direct more foreign investment to New Zealand companies rather than stocks and bonds.
However, according to reports last year, only 20 people applied for the “active investor visa” proposed by the Alder government, which is one-tenth of the number of applicants under the previous plan.
According to New Zealand’s Minister of Finance and Economic Growth, Nicola Willis, since its launch in 2022, 70 million New Zealanders have been launched since 2022. This is the same as the New Zealanders for the previous two years for 2.2 billion New Zealand Bank until 2020 under the previous plan.
Luxon, a former Unilever and Air New Zealand executive, aims to repeal the signature policies of many Labor governments and remove bans on oil and gas exploration in the country’s waters and a strict smoking ban.
He made “determining economic fixation” a top priority, with the country’s GDP shrinking by 1% in the quarter at the end of September last year.
Justin Murray, an investment banker at Murray & Co, said the latest visa move was a “wise initiative, we open again” welcome, and it closed them. ”
