The Cyprus parliament on Monday approved the Ministry of Interior request to allocate €1.4 million euros for enhanced due diligence (EDD) checks on CIP applicants under investment scheme. This was reported by Financial Mirror
The €1.4 million allotted annually will be used for will be spent on vetting 700 citizenship applications annually during the period of three years. Cyprus has set limited quota of 700 applications per year. This also means, roughly calculating Cyprus will be spending €2000 per application for conducting tighter due diligence .
Chair of the House’s Finance Committee, Angelos Votsis said “the annual budget of EUR 1.4 mln over the next three years is for the purchase of thorough due diligence services so there is no room for accusations over the Cypriot Investment programme”.
He added “the decision of parliament to release funds, and the involvement of these experts, will provide us with strong arguments to fend off those who use various accusations in an attempt to damage the country’s image abroad”.
The EU report published in 2019, criticised member states currently do not consult each other on applicants for investor citizenship. A lack of coordination and commonly agreed criteria leaves room for “shopping around” for the most lenient conditions.
The report also said that Cyprus charges a total fee of €7,000 for main applicant and another €7,000 for spouse
The new amended reforms for cypriot investment scheme comes into effect on May 15, 2019. Some of the important changes were
- Requirement of donation of €150,000 to housing and research increasing the current requirement from €2m to €2.15m
- Requirement of Schengen visa is mandatory
- Abolition of government bonds
- Investment scheme will be more transparent
Cyprus will also announce selection three due diligence firms on May 21, 2019
The Decision of the Council of Ministers of the 21st of May 2018 has determined that the expected time-frame for the examination of any application submitted in accordance with the provisions of the Cyprus Investment Programme is 6 months.
Prior to their naturalization as Cypriot citizens, must hold a residence permit in Cyprus for a period of at least 6 months.
Cyprus has received €6.6 billion investment through the citizenship scheme since its launch in 2013, of which real estate sector received half of the citizenship investments. Less than 2000 foreign investors were naturalized for citizenship under the investment scheme.
A study conducted by Finance ministry shows the impact of CIP boosting real estate and construction, employment sector, increase in VAT revenues and reducing debt.
In the 2019 Henley rankings, Cyprus passport took the 16th spot in passport rankings with visa free access to 173 countries in the world. Among the EU member states, Cyprus ranked 15th for the passport power. Despite being a good EU passport, cypriot nationals need visa to travel to United States, Russia and China.
