Cyprus will continue to provide citizenship to foreign investors

The President of the Republic of Cyprus, Nikos Anastasiadis, said that his country does not intend to cancel the policy of granting citizenship to individuals who invest in the economy of the island. Despite EU pressure on the “dishonesty of issuing passports” and “attempts to infiltrate criminal organizations into Europe through obtaining a Cyprus passport”, the island government will not abandon its investment and migration policies.

In an interview for the popular Cypriot newspaper Haravgi, President Anastasiadis noted that more than 4.5 thousand investors had already taken advantage of the program to obtain citizenship of the country since the financial crisis of 2013. Despite this, the head of state assured that the government of Cyprus would strengthen the rules for checking investors for the legal origin of income, paying taxes and complying with EU rules.

Later, the Minister of Finance of Cyprus Haris Georgiadis in an interview for Euronews confirmed that the conditions for the granting of citizenship of Cyprus have not undergone significant changes, but small changes have occurred for the regulatory authorities of the country.

"The controlling authorities of the Cyprus fulfilled all the requirements of the European Commission on banking and financial reporting, as well as tightened the rules on AML policy and attemptings to legalize an illegal incoming", said Mr. Georgiadis

Despite the fact that earlier the European Commission criticized Cyprus for "creating a zone for tax evasion", which threatened the country from being blacklisted by the EU, the leadership of the island country is ready to make concessions on the introduction of additional state checks of future citizens of Cyprus. However, in matters of establishing tax rates and taxation procedures, the island’s government plans to keep the rules for investors.

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