LISBON (Reuters) – Investments through Portugal’s “golden visa”, which provides wealthy foreigners residence rights, jumped nearly 50% last month, data showed on Sunday, as the federal government considers whether to scrap the controversial scheme.
The golden visa has been heavily criticised at home for sending house prices and rents up, and the European Commission has called for the top of such national programmes.
In Portugal, it has attracted 6.6 billion euros ($6.95 billion) in investment over the past decade, mainly from China, Brazil and Turkey, with the majority of the cash going into real estate.
To use, non-EU nationals must make a big investment in Portugal, similar to buying real estate. They’re then given residency rights and are allowed visa-free travel throughout Europe’s Schengen area.
But Prime Minister Antonio Costa said on Nov. 2 his government was going to guage the 10-year-old scheme, questioning whether the programme could still be justified.
Murat Coskun, Get Golden Visa CEO, said Costa’s comments had had a “significant impact on the appetite” for the measure, along with his company seeing a five-fold increase in inquiries.
Data from border agency SEF on Sunday showed investment through golden visas increased 48% in November from October to 65 million euros, and was up 41% from a yr earlier.
Vasco Silva, the CEO of Kleya, which helps foreigners move to Portugal, said his company had received many queries about what was happening, adding that some investors had rushed their decision just incase the programme was altered or binned.
“If there is no such thing as a residence by investment programme, (investors) will simply ignore the country,” Silva warned, arguing the greater than 10,000 visas issued since 2012 had put Portugal “on the map”.
The Portuguese branch of anti-corruption group Transparency International (TI) has said the programme could possibly be used for money laundering, while the European Commission has said it considers such schemes a possible security risk.
Silva said that was not the case because those involved in the method, from banks to lawyers, needed to comply with “very strict rules”.
“We usually are not allowing entrance to criminals or money for which we have no idea the source,” Silva said. “Exceptions can occur but it should be one in 10,000 or two in 10,000 and after all those are those that go public.”
Britain scrapped golden visas in February following the Russian invasion of Ukraine amid concerns in regards to the inflow of illicit Russian money. Portugal suspended golden visas for Russians, but 431 had already benefited from the scheme for the reason that time of its launch, in response to SEF.
(Reporting by Catarina Demony; Editing by Crispian Balmer)
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