Hong Kong’s newest gross sales pitch entails a cash-for-residency program focused at rich buyers — and most of them come from simply two international locations.
The plan, which started in March, presents two-year visas in alternate for an funding of 30 million Hong Kong {dollars}, about $3.8 million, into town. Traders can lengthen their visas and ultimately apply for everlasting residency. It builds on prior investment-for-residency packages supplied within the final twenty years, which purpose to seize overseas capital and expertise to spice up Hong Kong’s economic system.
This model attracted over 250 candidates in March via Could, per authorities information from final month. Almost 80% of the candidates come from simply two international locations: Vanuatu and Guinea-Bissau. The international locations have lengthy attracted mainland Chinese language in search of different residency choices, together with authorities officers — a sample highlighted by Reuters in 2014.
Few individuals purchase citizenship in Vanuatu or Guinea-Bissau with the intent to maneuver to the international locations and even step foot there. Everlasting residency as an alternative marks a stepping stone to Hong Kong’s residency scheme, which prohibits mainland Chinese language residents.
Vanuatu, a Pacific nation, has an analogous immigration program to Hong Kong. The nation markets itself as a “business-friendly, tax-free vacation spot” that points passports to rich people for an funding of $130,000 into the nation.
A 2021 report from The Guardian recognized a number of controversial figures who gained citizenship via this program, together with two founders of Africyrpt, the crypto funding app, who disappeared in 2021 together with billions of {dollars} in bitcoin, and Hayyam Garipoglu, who was imprisoned for embezzlement in Turkey.
Vanuatu, a small nation of about 350,000 individuals with few pure assets, depends on residency gross sales to buoy its economic system. Promoting citizenships accounted for practically 50% of the nation’s income, the federal government mentioned in 2022. Vanuatu residents can journey to the UK and the European Union, amongst different locations, with out visas.
Whereas Vanuatu pledged in 2022 to enhance due diligence checks to make sure the legitimacy of potential buyers, the nation granted citizenship to multimillionaire Andrew Spira, who had been convicted of utilizing a false passport and drug expenses in Australia in 2023, based on a November report from the Australian Broadcasting Company.
Passports from the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau have additionally turn into considerably of a sizzling matter on the Chinese language social media platform Xiaohongshu. Dozens of posts seen by Enterprise Insider promoted the nation’s passports, proven to be price 150,000 to 200,000 yuan, or about $21,000 to $27,000. The posts, which have been seen over 600,000 occasions, spotlight that the passports qualify for Hong Kong’s residency program.
Xiaohongshu
Guinea-Bissau has no recognized packages providing citizenships in alternate for investments. The West African nation’s residents at present make up the very best proportion of candidates for Hong Kong’s New Capital Funding Entrant Scheme — 139 out of 333 candidates, per authorities information.
Hong Kong’s newest try to woo buyers comes simply as a report by Henley and Companions exhibits that town misplaced 4% of its millionaires from 2013 to 2023.
The town has tried cash-for-residency packages earlier than. Its final try was suspended in 2015. Based on Bloomberg on the time, that program introduced in over 24,000 new residents, virtually 90% of whom had been Chinese language nationals.
