The market leader is the United States’ EB-5 program, which gives green cards to anyone who invests $500,000 in a business that creates or saves at least 10 jobs. Several others market themselves as cheaper or quicker alternatives.
Portugal has drawn at least $1.7 billion over four years from Chinese investors willing to buy property to support its faltering real estate market. Spain and Greece offer similar programs. Chinese have bought the most visas in all three countries.
Five Caribbean nations offer passports for as little as $100,000. Chinese are the top buyers in Antigua and Barbuda, according to government statistics.
Australia goes the more expensive route, requiring an investment of 5 million Australian dollars (nearly $3.7 million). Despite a price nearly eight times as high as the EB-5 program, Australia is estimated to have attracted more than $6 billion in Chinese investment in just four years.
But problems in the industry worldwide are rife.
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FRAUGHT WITH RISK
The U.S.’s EB-5 program has been heavily criticized by government watchdogs and targeted by lawmakers of both parties in Congress, who say it promotes fraud and helps developers building megaprojects more than struggling communities. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who has introduced legislation to end the program, has called EB-5 a “Ponzi scheme.” Her Republican counterpart, Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, has said EB-5 “poses significant national security risks” and “may be facilitating terrorist travel, economic espionage, money laundering and investment fraud.”
