AUSTRALIA IMMIGRATION GRANTED 343 RESIDENCY VISAS UNDER SIV CATEGORY AND 85% ARE CHINESE INVESTORS AND THERE ARE 602 APPLICATION PENDING ENDING 31ST JULY 2014 BUT PROBLEM IS NEITHER IMMIGRATION KNOW THE END DESTINATION OF INVESTMENT NOR PARLIAMENT AWARE OF ANY DETAILS AND FOREIGN INVESTMENT REVIEW BOARD AND RESERVE BANK OF AUSTRALIA EACH FIGHTING WITH SEPARATE DETAILS SAYING DATA IS DEFICIENT Nearly $150 million has been invested in the property market by cashed-up Chinese investors via the significant-investor visa scheme, although the Immigration Department admits it does not know the true extent of foreign investment in property. Significant-investor visa holders – 90 per cent are from China – cannot invest directly in property but they are free to invest in the sector via managed funds or private companies that are property developers. In a new submission to a parliamentary committee inquiry into foreign investment, the Immigration Department says foreigners have invested around $111.5 million in private companies that are property developers, and another $28 million in property-focused managed funds. However, the Immigration Department said it cannot identify the end destination of the investments, which limits its ability to separate real estate investment from other types of investment. “The department collects limited data about the managed funds and qualifying businesses that significant-investor visa holders invest in, beyond making sure that they are complying investments,” the department writes. “It is particularly difficult to assess the nature of investments (ie if they relate to property) that the managed funds make on behalf of the significant-investors visa holder.” The federal government has attracted $1.7 billion and granted 343 residency visas to foreigners, 85 per cent to Chinese, under the significant-investor visa program. The latest figures show that at July 31, another 602 people applied for residency visas and promised to invest $3.05 billion under the program, which gives residence to applicants investing $5 million in approved assets. The new submission to a Senate inquiry comes amid allegations that the visa scheme, which fast-tracks residency for foreigners who invest at least $5 million in bonds, managed funds or private companies, is being misused to funnel primarily Chinese investment into residential real estate. In its submission, the department says almost half of the investments made by significant-investor visa holders have been in government bonds with no bearing on real estate. Data deficient, say Treasury, FIRB Foreign investment in real estate surged to $24.8 billion in the first nine months of 2013-14, an increase of 93 per cent on the previous year, according to Treasury. A submission from the Reserve Bank of Australia to the same inquiry highlighted potential deficiencies in data collected by the Foreign Investment Review Board on foreign purchases of real estate. “Foreign Investment Review Board data published reflect only gross approvals by foreign buyers; the subsequent sale of their properties to Australian citizens or permanent residents (required for instance when temporary residents vacate the property) is not included in the FIRB data,” the RBA says. Treasury also said the lack of a comprehensive data source on nationwide dwelling purchases makes it difficult to tell how significant foreign investment is as a share of total national housing demand. “Care must be exercised when analysing Foreign Investment Review Board approval data because it represents approvals and does not reflect actual purchases. “Despite the limitations, preliminary approvals data for 2013-14 show that, consistent with the overall housing market, there has been strong growth in foreign investment approvals over the previous year, especially in new dwellings,” the Treasury wrote.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Sep 2014 11:58:10 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015