Safety, security drive people to spend $18B on migration
dubai — People spend around $18 billion annually on migration across the globe and the figures are expected to reach $20 billion soon, industry executives said.
Marco Gantenbein, managing partner, Henley and Partners, said $18 billion represents the whole industry — citizenship by investments and residence by investment programmes. And it is projected to hit $20 billion in the near future.
“Big countries like the US, Canada and the UK have residence by investment schemes. In the overall migration industry, residence by investment is very fast growing. People looking for safety, security, better education for children, brighter future for their family and wishing to retire in different parts of the world to enjoy life are some of the key reasons that this industry has grown so much,” Gantenbein said.
Currently, over 100 countries are running different migration programmes, of which 60 are active ones.
“From a citizenship by investment perspective, there are annually a couple of thousands applicants from around the world while on the residence by investment perspective, you have tens of thousands of people applying for it. For instance, the US alone receives several thousand applications a year,” Gantenbein said during a Press conference at the two-day 12th Global Residence and Citizenship Conference, which began on Monday.
He noted that the UAE passport is ranked among the five fastest growing and it will continue to grow fast in visa-free travel arrangements.