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BVI, Cayman and Seychelles still dominate China's offshore aspirations; a trend that is likely to continue. Sticking with what you know has become somewhat of a theme when it comes to Chinese investors use of offshore finance centers. While OFCs from Jersey to Samoa have tried to cash in on the China dollar, it remains the fact that the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands remain the destination of choice for Chinese.  Seychelles comes in a close third place and, some might say, is closing the gap on the Caribbean big boys. The island has been aggressively marketing itself...

REPORTS 2020

By Claire van den Heever. It wasn't terribly lonh ago that marriage in China was for life. For women, it often bore more resemblance to a life sentence: once you entered into a marriage, you relinquished your rights to your husband and his family, and served them as they saw fit. Divorce was shameful for women, and those few who did manage to successfully secede from their husbands were labelled po xie (old shoe). Because of the accompanying stigma, second marriages were neither very likely nor without problems of their own, and were perhaps only as problematic as remaining single...

REPORTS 2020

On the whole, 2018 was the investment migration industry’s best year on record in several respects; never have so many individuals invested so much in so many residence and citizenship by investment (RCBI) programs. An ever swelling number of citizenship and golden visa programs - with price points running the gamut from $30,000 to £2 million - are bringing the market into the arena of the mass affluent. Investing in a residence permit or a passport is quickly becoming ordinary and unremarkable, a matter that’s attracted the attention of a long list of small economies now realizing the untapped economic...

IMMIGRATION BY INVESTMENT REPORTS 2019

By Dr. Clint Bennetti – Director of Trusts and Corporate Services at Kylin Prime Group The Malta Residency and Visa Regulations have been amended to extend the list of Qualifying Investments. The revised regulations now state that that the investments referred to in regulation 6(1) (d) of the said regulations, can be made in debt or equity securities listed on the Official List of the Malta Stock Exchange. Investment in these securities may also be achieved through an investment in collective investment schemes that are licensed and are on the Official List of the Malta Stock Exchange. These changes are...

IMMIGRATION BY INVESTMENT REPORTS 2019

The citizenship by investment market has grown at a ferocious pace in the last few years; New programs have entered the fray, and existing ones have seen their application volumes grow. But how many individual passports have been issued to participants in citizenship by investment programs worldwide, all told? We’ve been digging through the data and come up with what we’re confident is the most accurate estimate ever compiled on the total number of economic citizens in the world. Throughout the analysis, we explain how we calculated our estimates. We’ve had to rely not only on official program reports but...

IMMIGRATION BY INVESTMENT REPORTS 2019

Speaking to Malta Today, Jonathan Cardona, head of Malta’s Individual Investor Programme (the MIIP), said that, since the beginning in 2014 and until the present, the CIP he heads has rejected some 24% of all applicants. A quick look at the data as reported in the annual reports of the Office of the Regulator of the Individual Inveseestor Programme (ORiip) – which cover the periods between the end of June and the beginning of July each year and are published every November – reveals that rejection rates have risen sharply each year since the program opened four years ago. Rates of rejection...

IMMIGRATION BY INVESTMENT REPORTS 2019

We’ve put together an overview of the world’s most popular residence by investment programs, backed by official statistics. A note on the methodology: We’ve used the latest available full-yearfigures from official sources. Since official sources differ in their reporting frequency (some report monthly, others every now and then), the degree to which data is current also varies; for some countries, the numbers are up-to-date as of this month, while for others they date back up more than a year. We’ve ranked programs by the number of approvedmain applicants, while also listing the total number of visas issued (including dependents) where such figures were available....

IMMIGRATION BY INVESTMENT REPORTS 2019

By Tendai Musakwa. There is a growing awareness among China's high net worth individuals (HNWI's) of the need for a considered approach towards wealth and succession planning. The continuation of family business into future generations is another major concern for Chinese entrepreneurs. Furthermore, greater regulatory and tax requirements are increasing the cost of managing wealth effectively. Trusts can be an effective way to solve all of these problems. Why Establish a Trust? Trusts can play an important role as vehicles for estate planning, asset protection and tax mitigation. While China's nascent trust sector will likely see growth in the future, major...

2020