Montenegro is the fastest growing economy in the region, and the economic growth rate of 4.9 percent achieved last year is one of the largest in Europe
PM Markovic while addressing the german business community, called for investments in stable and safe Montenegro
He pointed out the a fund for development of infrastructure will be created through the economic citizenship program.
As an important prerequisite for further growth, Prime Minister Marković highlighted the development of the overall infrastructure. In this context, he pointed to a fund that will be created for this purpose through an economic citizenship programme.
“The key sectors of our economy are tourism, energy, agriculture, and we are actively working on industry’s revitalization,” PM Marković said.
The revenues collected citizenship scheme is expected to bring more developments to the north of montenegro.
“That money will be allocated to the less-developed local self-government units and will be spent primarily on infrastructure and facilities which will bring some value to the north of the country.” said Secretariat for development projects.
The government agency further said citizenship to be granted to most suitable applicants, willing to invest in the development of Montenegro and final decisions are to be taken by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and National Security Agency.
The Government of Montenegro recently announced that the special citizenship by investment scheme will likely commence by the end of 2019 and fully operational by 2020.
Montenegro citizenship scheme to follow GRANT + Investment model. The regulations require EUR 100,000 contribution to development fund plus EUR 250,000 investment in development projects such as real estate etc. Investments in five star luxury hotels above EUR 5 million also qualify with creation of jobs.
The Economic Citizenship program will ensure an increased inflow of foreign direct investments, generate new revenues and provide additional funds for investing in under- developed areas, so as to improve regional development;
The special citizenship scheme is limited to 2000 applications and will only run for three years until Dec 31, 2022
Montenegro expected to raise about EUR 200 million for development fund with 2000 applications contributing each EUR 100,000, plus another more than 500 million through investments in development projects totally EUR 700m.
Montenegro had GDP of 4.7 billion in 2017. The citizenship scheme which runs for three years, expected to add some 14% to the yearly GDP of Montenegro.
Further assuming family 3 members (investor + spouse + child) per citizenship application, roughly calculating scheme will create 6000 economic citizens in Montenegro living in diaspora . In 2017, Montenegro had population of 622,000. The citizenship scheme will add 1.6% of economic citizenship to population.
