Australia woos rich investors with preferential visa plan

2012-05-27

In a move to attract investments, Australia Friday announced plans to give "preferential" visa treatment to high net worth businesses men and women, particularly from Asian countries, who are willing to comfortably invest $AU5 million (US$4.9 million) when applying for permanent residency.

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The move is part of the Federal government's effort to expand business programmes in Australia by attracting risk takers, innovators, and all-around savvy business folks to the country.
"Of course this new permanent visa will be available to people from other countries on a non-discriminatory basis, but I expect considerable interest from across Asia, and China in particular," said Immigration Minister Chris Bowen.

The visas would be issued to people who invest the money in either state and territory bonds, Australian Security Investment Commission regulated managed funds or directly into Australian companies.

"Their investments will offer a disproportionate boost to the Australian economy and the financial services sector, particularly through infrastructure and managed funds," said Bowen.

The capital investment is expected to make funds available in sectors struggling to find resources.

Though there are already some special arrangements in place, authorities feel it can be done better by making broader change in the business visa programme.

"We want to attract people who want to invest in Australia," Bowen said. "We want them to make a commitment to Australia financially, we also want them to make some commitment to Australia emotionally and we'll have a range of measures in place which I'll be announcing later today to do that."

The Greens Senator, Sarah Hanson-Young, says the government's got its priorities wrong and she would rather see more assistance for families.

"There are thousands of Australians out there who have been waiting to be able to bring their family members and fast tracking their applications, streamlining those, would be contributing across the community, not just in one sector," she said.

The new visa category is expected to begin in just over a month.

Source: Australian News.Net