There are applicants for “golden visas” – Kommersant FM

20 foreigners wanted to receive a Russian “golden visa”. Such data from the Ministry of Economic Development is cited by Izvestia. The applicants include citizens of the United States, China, Germany and Algeria. The residence permit in exchange for investment program was launched this year. To obtain a residence permit under a simplified procedure, you need to buy real estate for at least 25 million rubles and invest at least 15 million rubles. to socially significant projects or from 30 million rubles. to a local company.

But which foreigners may need a Russian “golden visa”? Independent financial analyst Sergei Skatov answered this question for Kommersant FM: “For a long time, the main investor in the Russian Federation among foreigners was Cyprus, because Russian companies transferred their profits there and then reinvested them back into the country to expand their business.

I think that some of these 20 people are from Russia, they have main business interests here, but they received citizenship of other countries simply to resolve personal issues. Foreign infrastructure provided them with more opportunities to protect their assets, but now being a citizen of Cyprus and doing business in Russia has become much more difficult, the same with the United States and other countries.

It is extremely unlikely to count on the fact that these are some foreigners who have been waiting for several years to get the opportunity to do business in Russia, and now they have decided that it is time. Today, engaging in direct investment in the Russian Federation is not the most obvious solution.

Firstly, our credit is expensive. Coming to Russia and borrowing in rubles is quite strange, but there are not so many opportunities to acquire currency and then withdraw it.

Secondly, there is a large labor shortage. If you come and start investing today, you simply won’t find workers. As for this program, most likely this is an image story, saying that we want to be a center of attraction for entrepreneurs and so on.”

At the same time, the total investment volume of all 20 applicants is estimated at slightly more than 1 billion rubles. This is one tenth of the figure that the Ministry of Economic Development was counting on. Nevertheless, Sergei Prikhodko, executive director of the Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy, believes that some areas of business may be of interest to investors:

“Probably, if we are successful, the rate of return may be above average. For this reason, capital flowed to Russia before. The risks have always been quite high compared to countries, as we said, civilized. But there was an opportunity to get greater profitability. As for industries, the fuel and energy complex probably remains the focus of attention, and we are talking not only about the extraction of relevant minerals, but also about maintenance. And maybe agriculture in a broader sense.”

The Ministry of Energy clarified that they reviewed most of the applications and issued positive conclusions. But the final decision is made by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the list of investors who have received a residence permit will become known only at the beginning of next year.

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Ilya Sizov