By invitation only visa program.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: Emboldened by a similar program that encouraged a gaggle of wealthy Chinese nationals to immigrate, Australia has launched a new initiative that specifically targets one-percenters from the United States.
The invite-only visa program, called the Premium Investment Visa scheme, will require participants to invest A$ 15 million ($11.57 million) in order to qualify for the privilege of becoming an Aussie, according to a report by Reuters.
Despite the massive financial requirements, Australian immigration officials say the initiative is not motivated by the injection of new capital into the Australian economy.
“The United States … is a natural place to target the kinds of entrepreneurial skills and talents we need to cultivate further in Australia,” the Australian Trade Commission (Austrade) told Reuters in an email. U.S. “innovators” would help to build links between Australians and “entrepreneurial hubs” such as Silicon Valley, Los Angeles and Boston, it added.
“Australia has long been a place of innovative ideas, research and development, but has often lacked the capital, depth of entrepreneurial talent or scale to commercialize our ideas successfully,” Austrade said.
While Australian immigration is hopeful the plan will inject even more capital into the Australian economy, some prominent investors don’t believe the program will gain much traction due to the countries being too similar.
“The U.S. has some problems that Australia doesn’t have. It’s got a lot more racial crimes, it’s got a lot more gun-related crimes, but I don’t think that is going to drive a whole bunch of ultra-rich Americans out of their country,” Bill Fuggle, a partner at law firm Baker & McKenzie who advises rich Chinese migrating to Australia, told Reuters.
For the fourth consecutive year, Australia made the Top 10 global destinations for foreign direct investment in 2014, according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development. It ranked 8th, one ahead of the UK, and is one of only four developed countries in the Top 10.
However, according to a 2014 report by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the United States did not even rank within the top ten countries of birth within Australian borders:
ESTIMATED RESIDENT POPULATION, Australia – Top 10 countries of birth – 30 June 2014 | ||
Persons | ||
Country of birth | no. | % of Australian population |
UK, CIs & IOM (a) | 1 221 300 | 5.2 |
New Zealand | 617 000 | 2.6 |
China (b) | 447 400 | 1.9 |
India | 397 200 | 1.7 |
Philippines | 225 100 | 1.0 |
Vietnam | 223 200 | 1.0 |
Italy | 201 800 | 0.9 |
South Africa | 176 300 | 0.8 |
Malaysia | 153 900 | 0.7 |
Germany | 129 000 | 0.5 |
(a) United Kingdom, Channel Islands and Isle of Man. (b) Excludes SARs and Taiwan. |
The Australian government is also hoping the depreciating Aussie dollar and the country’s proximity to emerging markets like Indonesia and China could help to attract U.S. talent, along with the Australian stock market. The Aussie stock market may very well be a sleeping giant, as demonstrated by the successful listing of San Francisco-based online recruiter 1-page in October last year.
“No country is perfect, but I like a lot of things about this place,” one of Australia’s most famous American expats, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, told the Australian Financial Review last December.