Christopher ZeniosSince 2013, the island of Cyprus has offered to individuals a Cyprus Passport – a Golden Passport as it’s known – that enables them to live, work and travel freely within European countries. The cost requires an investment of €2mil euros or more and keep their investments for a period of 5 years, after which they will be eligible to sell, providing they keep a personal residence property worth €500,000. This is just one of a few requirements.
The intriguing Cyprus initiative has used its investments to boost the nation’s economy, real estate and of course tourism sectors, and foreigners from many corners of the planet have taken advantage of this program.
Many high worth individuals have joined the program and enjoyed the amazing benefits that come with it, but others have attempted to sign up for the programme with other agendas. However, these individuals failed.
Recently, the Cyprus nation granted a “golden passport” to around 26 individuals. These individuals had been painted by officials and prosecutors as masterminds of scandals and others with a “not so clean” past. After a thorough investigation, the Cyprus government became even stricter in regards to who purchases a Cyprus passport, to protect and keep its prestige reputation.
Investigations and further checks have taken place recently and so far this has proven to be successful for the Cyprus scheme, as it steers corrupt masterminds and accused felons away from it. This allows the Cyprus Citizenship program to remain one of the best in the market still.
A Cyprus Citizenship Program with Benefits
After the global financial crisis, the Cyprus Citizenship program has helped the nation recover economically. More specifically real estate and construction industries have seen a boost due to investments that came through the program. This can be clearly seen in the cities of Limassol, Paphos and more recently Larnaca.
The program has also helped create over 2,000 jobs in the construction industry and boosted the tourism sector also.
Some experts believe that by exploiting the program correctly may see an even greater Cyprus economic improvement and this can be done by promoting the shipping industry, health or manufacturing industries.
Other experts believe that passports should be issued to individuals that want to make real investments because the program has the potential to benefit a wider range of people and not just the specific number of investors. How? By expanding into areas like innovation and technology.
Chairman of the Fiscal Council Demetris Georgiades pointed out an important fact saying:
Cyprus must become attractive to investment and individuals who want to stay permanently for the substantive advantages it offers and not mainly because it offers citizenship.
Ultimately the Cyprus Citizenship Program remains a strong scheme and one of the best available still with much potential.
