Chinese buying their way to better lives elsewhere
FROM the United States and Canada to small islands in Europe and the Caribbean, Chinese are spending billions on new passports and visas to move their families away from their homeland.
China’s middle and upper classes are demanding better schools, cleaner air and a more secure life for their children. As China gets wealthier, millions of families have the means to buy a new life elsewhere.
Their demand has transformed a once obscure market for immigration by investment. To study China’s impact, the Associated Press collected statistics from 13 countries that offer citizenship or permanent residency for a price.
Here’s a look at AP’S analysis of the market, by the numbers.
Consulting firms in China’s biggest cities hawk investor visa programmes in weekly sessions at hotels and on social media. The market leader is the United States, as urban Chinese are widely familiar with American schools and culture.
US top destination
Here are the five countries in the AP’S analysis with the most visas issued to Chinese investors and their families in the last decade:
43 448: the United States’ investment visa programme, known as EB-5.
35 278: Canada’s investment bond programmes, including a programme offered by the province of Quebec.
7 875: Portugal’s “golden visa” programme for real estate investors.
6 405: Hungary’s residence bond programme, recently suspended by the government.
4 640: Australia’s programme for high-dollar “significant investors".
Depending on the country, Chinese investors looking for a second home can join business projects, invest in bonds or make an outright payment to the government. Currency conversions are as at May 11.
$250 000: the minimum price of citizenship in Antigua and Barbuda for an investor who donates to the island government’s development fund and pays a $50 000 government fee.
$380 000 (€350 000): the minimum value of real estate investors must purchase in Portugal’s “golden visa” programme.
$500 000: the minimum business investment in the United States’ EB-5 programme, with a “green card” given to investors whose money creates or saves 10 jobs.
$800 000 Canadian dollars): the minimum amount of interest-free investment to be made or financed for residence in the Canadian province of Quebec. (Canada closed a similar programme in 2014.)
$3.7 million (five million Australian dollars): the required investment in Australia’s Significant Investor Visa programme in a mix of developing businesses and funds. Australia’s progamme is by far the most expensive.
To understand how China has changed the global investor migration market, the AP estimated how much Chinese families have invested at a minimum in foreign countries for a visa or passport.
Chinese consulting firms hawk investor visa programmes in sessions at hotels and on social media.
The AP multiplied the number of investors, excluding family members, by the minimum investment level for each year, in each programme for the last decade. In some cases, it estimated the number of investors with government data or experts on investment migration.
The figures below are an undercount because some investors put in more than what’s required. Investment amounts for each year were converted to US dollars, based on the average exchange rate that year. The figures have not been adjusted for inflation.
$7.7 billion: estimated minimum investment in the US through the EB-5 programme.
$6 billion: estimated minimum investment in Australia through its Significant Investor Visa programme.
$4.3 billion: estimated minimum investment in Canada, including Quebec, through its immigrant investor programmes.
$1.96 billion: estimated minimum investment in the United Kingdom through its Tier 1 investor programme.
$1.71 billion: estimated minimum investment in New Zealand through its investor and entrepreneur programmes.