Parliament amends the Aliens Act: BGN 1m buy permanent residence

The National Assembly approved on the first reading the amendments to the Aliens Act, proposed by the Coalition for Bulgaria. The changes provide for a right of permanent residence for foreigners who have deposits in financial institutions and investments in Bulgarian companies.

According to the changes, a permanent residence permit for foreigners will be given if they have invested over BGN 1 million or have increased their deposits to BGN 1 million in a licensed credit institution in Bulgaria under a trust period of not less than five years.

The new arrangements also provide for citizenship for investors who have invested in excess of BGN 2 million. This is a measure that will encourage foreigners to inject larger amounts of investments to Bulgaria, the Bulgarian political Left says.

After a re-run of the texts on the request of GERB, 87 MPs were" for", 69 MPS were "against" and 12 representatives abstained.

Other measures to encourage foreign investment were proposed by the Investment Promotion Act in February, which was then returned by the President Rosen Plevneliev for further consideration.

Adapted from StandartNews