How gold is the Golden Visa for the Chinese? the Chinese investment in the Ari program in Portugal

: 2012 to 2021

Abstract

This study aims to achieve a better understanding of the Chinese investors in the Portuguese Golden Visa program, the so-called ARI (Autorização de Residência para Atividade de Investimento). Apart from the ARI, there are two other “residency by investment” programs which are very similar to the latter: the Spanish and the Greek Golden Visa. The ARI's Greek counterpart is known to be the least expensive way to enter the European Union. Even with prices that double the Greek ones', the ARI still attracts as many Chinese investors as the Greek Golden Visa. How did this dynamic develop and what are the factors granting the ARI's success vis à vis the Chinese investors? When speaking about residency for investment programs, there are also many critics in Portugal and all over the European Union, as the ARI offers the applicants the possibility to travel freely in the whole Schengen area. Should countries be allowed to give their residency away for money or does this entail security risks for the receiving country and the whole European Union? These points are to be analysed and taken into consideration for the outlook of how the attractiveness of the ARI might develop after the sanitary crisis. Even more important seems the impact of the changes that are planned to be introduced to the Portuguese Golden Visa which might highly shrink the number of applicants to the ARI. These measures and their effects will also be discussed and underpinned by surveys to four Chinese investors to the Golden Visa.

Date of Award	23 Jan 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Jorge Santos Alves (Supervisor)