Australia scraps golden visa scheme
Australia has announced the end of its significant investor visa (SIV), in favour of more high skilled worker visas
The ‘golden visa’ scheme was intended to attract wealthy foreign investors and businesses to the country – to be eligible, applicants had to invest more than A$5 million (US$3.3 million) into Australia.
According to a report by the BBC, thousands of SIVs have been granted through the program since 2012, with 85% of successful applicants being from China.
However, the SIV scheme has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years, with one Australian government report in 2016 highlighting concerns about their potential use in “money laundering and other nefarious activities”. It was also found that the visas were attracting people to the country who had less business acumen than might otherwise have arrived.
The visa’s end was heralded by a government policy document published in December, which said that the SIV scheme would be replaced with more visas for skilled migrants.
China and Switzerland are currently in talks to simplify the visa procedure for travellers between the two countries.