Chinese buy property in Cyprus to gain EU permanent residence
After cash-strapped Cypriot government offers permanent residency to big investors, wealthy Chinese flock to buy property
One of the first things you see after landing at Larnaca airport in Cyprus is an advertisement for a property development company. It is in Chinese.
"Everything will be Chinese," says Pafos mayor Savvas Vergas in his office in the pretty, whitewashed city hall, fronted by classical Greek pillars. "Meals … folklore … Everything will be on Chinese culture."
The carnival will be a way of celebrating a most unusual boom in a country which, like others in southern Europe, has been stricken by the euro-zone crisis. Property prices in Cyprus have fallen by around 15 per cent since 2007. Yet an official survey published last month found that between last August and October more than 600 properties, 90 per cent of them in Pafos, were sold to Chinese buyers.
"The real growth came after August because that was when the government made clear the terms and conditions for third country nationals to get permanent residence," says Giorgios Leptos, a director of the Leptos property group and president of the Pafos chamber of commerce and industry.
The opportunity to secure permanent residence in an EU member state is a huge attraction for Chinese because it offers them visa-free travel throughout the union.