UAE launches ‘permanent residency’ scheme for foreign investors

The United Arab Emirates (UAE)’s Vice President and Prime Minister and the Ruler of Dubai, Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, yesterday launched a new scheme which grants permanent residency to expatriates.

“We launched a new ‘Golden Card’ system to grant permanent residency to investors and exceptional doctors, engineers, scientists and artists,” Al-Maktoum wrote on Twitter, explaining that the residency was granted to a “first batch of 6,800 investors with AED100 billion [$27 billion] worth of investments.”

The Golden Card, Al-Maktoum pointed out, will be granted to “exceptional talents and everyone who positively contributes to the success story of the UAE.”

The permanent residency “Golden Card” will be granted to exceptional talents and everyone who positively contributes to the success story of the UAE. We want them to be permanent partners in our journey. Residents are an indispensable part of our country.

— HH Sheikh Mohammed (@HHShkMohd) May 21, 2019

The Emirati official described the residency holders as the UAE’s “permanent partners in its journey,” stressing that they were “an indispensable part of our country and are our brothers and part of our great family in the UAE.”

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The Golden Card scheme was the UAE’s way to welcome “all those seeking to be a part of the UAE’s success story and making it a second home”, he continued

The government also said on its official Twitter page that the scheme was offering “unprecedented benefits” to the cardholders and their families, as well as creating “an attractive environment for business and growth,” explaining that it would attract “greater foreign investment, and stimulate the local economy and make it more efficient and attractive for investors.”

Abu Dhabi noted that the first batch of investors came “from more than 70 countries around the world.”