At the 11th Annual Global Residence and Citizenship Conference, we asked world-renowned investment legend Jim Rogers about his views on investment migration. His insights are below.
You’ve said before that acquiring alternative citizenship will soon become a necessity. Can you elaborate?
We’re not going to have a very simple and stable world in the next 20 or 30 years, maybe even longer, and everybody should have a ‘plan B’. You have your assets in other places — many people diversify their assets — and you should diversify your living possibilities, too. You hope you never need an insurance policy, even though you have one.
But everybody in 2020, 2030, should have a ‘plan B’.
How would you describe the period we’ve entered into, with its increasing moments of insecurity?
The 19th century was a period with virtually no wars and lots of open borders, open trade, open everything. That all ended in the 20th century, with much disaster. I’m afraid we’re now coming back to a period where people are closing off instead of opening up. And, if that happens, you need to be able to be mobile, one way or the other.
Is citizenship becoming a commodity?
Well, I’m not sure I would call it a commodity. I would say that it is more accepted to have more than one passport, and more and more countries are allowing it. More people like me know the necessity. Many nationalities have a history of needing more than one passport. If you were Jewish at one point in history, you knew you needed two passports. The Poles have many times in their history needed more than one passport. Everybody, whether they know it or not, has needed more than one passport in their history. Some more than others, of course, but I think alternative citizenship is becoming more understood and accepted worldwide.
How do you think governments can promote the idea of citizenship-by-investment to their citizens?
Well, it’s simple. You explain that people who invest in your country create jobs and prosperity. Now, it may not be simple to explain it so that people understand it. I certainly understand that if a person invests in this country and not another country, the country that receives the investment is, in the end, going to be better off than the countries that don’t receive the investment.
About Jim Rogers
Jim Rogers is an author, financial commentator, adventurer, and international investor. He has frequently been featured in, and contributed to, top global media outlets. After attending Yale and Oxford universities, Rogers co-founded the Quantum Fund, a global investment partnership. After retiring at age 37, Rogers served as Professor of Finance at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business and as the moderator of WCBS’s ‘The Dreyfus Roundtable’ and FNN’s ‘The Profit Motive with Jim Rogers’.
Today, he is Chairman of Rogers Holding and Beeland Interests, Inc.
Source/Credit: Henley & Partners
