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Australia Kills Its Investor Visas, Bulgaria and Romania Join Schengen: This Week in IMI · IMI Podcasts

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: You're listening to This Week in Investment Migration.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Australia has unceremoniously closed its entire BIIIP suite of programs, including all its investor and entrepreneur visas.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: More than 100,000 foreign nationals have used one of the BIIP streams to gain residency in Australia over the last 15 years, and the significant investor visa substream alone has raised some AUD 12 billion since opening in 2012.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: The government cited limited fiscal benefits and dubious applicants as its motivation for scuttling the program.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: After many years of negotiations, Bulgaria and Romania will finally join the Schengen area this April.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Bulgarian and Romanian visas will now be recognized as Schengen visas, explains Bulgarian residency expert Ivan L Petrov, and holders of residence permits in the two countries will not be subject to ID checks when crossing Schengen's internal air and sea borders.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: In an article for IMI, Charles Sava details Cyprus's new citizenship rules, which allow for the naturalization of qualified individuals in as little as three years if they can learn basic Greek.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: This represents one of the EU's shortest naturalization periods.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: The new rules also legally oblige the government to handle citizenship applications within eight months, an advantage that's unique to Cyprus.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Mona Sai and Rebecca S.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Singh detail 11 issues facing the United States EB5 program this year, along with their predictions for each.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: They foresee, among other things, that Chinese demand will expand despite fears to the contrary, that the number of regional centers will reach an all-time high, and that delays and backlogs in processing will continue to haunt the program at least until 2025.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: A little known part of the Dominican Republic's citizenship law states individuals who own real estate and have settled in the country may apply for citizenship after as little as six months.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: This arguably makes the country's investor visa, which allows for residency qualification through a real estate investment of$200,000, something akin to a citizenship program.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: In practice, however, the time it takes to actually qualify for citizenship is likely to exceed two years, say local immigration lawyers.