“Portugal has closed itself to international investment, foreigners are no longer welcome in the country. This is the message that the government has sent to the whole world,” analyzes the president of the Portuguese Association of Real Estate Promoters and Investors (APPII) , Hugo Santos Ferreira.
Criticism is piling up on the end of the Investment Residence Permit (ARI) regime, commonly known as visas gold. Associations and businessmen are pointing the finger at the measure announced by the Prime Minister under the Mais Habitação programme, approved last week by the Council of Ministers and now in public consultation, asking António Costa to take a step back.
“Either the government will be wise enough to reconsider and realize that this is not the right course of action, or it will present us with a study that proves that the housing problem is related to the impact of golden Visachallenges the APPII representative, calling the series of measures an “unprecedented attack and a punishment for tourists and foreign investment.”
António Costa ended the decade-old mechanism, based on the argument of combating real estate speculation, justifying that there is “a very low percentage, not to say close to zero, for job creation, and a very low contribution to other activities”. Otherwise reading does the general manager of Mercan Properties, Miguel Gomes.
The company that is part of the Canadian group Mercan entered Portugal in 2015 and has developed its business exclusively through ARI. By the end of the year, global investments in the country, including 23 hotels, will reach €1.4 billion through 2,500 visas gold.
“Precisely thanks to this program, the Mercan group has been able to create in Portugal in recent years a reference hotel group, which will employ hundreds of employees and will employ thousands of employees when all hotel units are completed and put into operation. , which will be an important economic activity generating in a fundamental sector,” he defends.
The official sees the move as “more ideological than logical” and that, in the future, will lead to “the loss of a very important source of foreign investment, in which the country is so deficient, and in particular the tourism sector”. Miguel Gomes therefore hopes that the government “reconsiders the decision”.
The president of the Associação Portuguesa de Resorts (APR) firmly states that “foreigners are not to blame because they represent a small part of the real estate market and that part is unable to influence prices or demand”, and warns against the economic consequences that may arise from the end of the program and the “damaging turmoil” that the announcement brought.
“The visas gold have brought Portugal nearly €7 billion in investment since 2012 [6,54 mil milhões de euros e 11 180 autorizações concedidas]. It’s money that came into the country and it wasn’t hard for us to get it, reviving construction and putting a lot of people into work. This can end overnight and there is no substitute for this program,” regretted Pedro Fontainhas.
The APR spokesman states that clarifications are needed, because what the head of government dictated was “a sea of doubts”. It is not just about investment in real estate, but all other ways that the ARI is considering, namely investments through, for example, capital transfer, job creation or support for artistic production and cultural heritage.
António Costa only clarified that, in addition to the end of the granting of new visas, the authorizations already granted will only be renewed if they will be used for the owner’s own and permanent residence or that of a descendant, or if the property is placed on a long-term lease.
Restructuring is the way
The ban is not seen with good eyes, neither by entrepreneurs in the sector, nor by associations. The strategy should go through a reorganization of the program, they argue. “The end of visas gold robs the country of competitive advantage. There should be, instead of the term, a bet on the research, to understand what kind of visas interest us. There are regions that have benefited from this, entrepreneurs who allocate investments in industrial and agricultural areas and who wanted to create new businesses and wealth in those regions,” explains Avenue Real Estate CEO Aniceto Viegas, who emphasizes that the measures applied today is already investing domestically.
The ARI regime change, which came into effect in 2022, banned residential investment in Lisbon, Porto and on the coast and is only possible inland and on the islands. The tourism or commercial bet was therefore the only opportunity for foreigners to invest in major cities through this program.
Also the director of property by United Investments Portugal (UIP), owner of units such as the Hyatt Regency Lisboa, the Sheraton Cascais or the Pine Cliffs Resort, in the Algarve, points to solutions for a new version of the program and proposes to completely withdraw the housing component . “Maintaining services, capital deposits, investments in funds and contributions to research programs. This could continue to be the goal of attracting new capital to Portugal without affecting housing,” he says.
Daniel Correia nevertheless emphasizes that the blame is attributed to visas by the government gold by real estate speculation “it’s not real” because it has “a very small expression”. “What is driving house prices up is the lack of construction. For the last 10 years we have had construction levels well below the 2008 crisis and that is noticeable in the market. If there is no construction, the law on supply and demand, that prices have to go up,” he emphasizes.
Hugo Santos Ferreira, of APPI, agrees, recalling that of the 168,000 homes sold in the country in 2022, only 1,000 properties were sold through the golden visas, placing the blame on Costa. “We are not able to build houses that the Portuguese can afford, because we are not working on the supply side, we do not have a courageous government that is taking measures to be able to reduce the cost of housing. We must reduce the tax burden, we cannot have the Additional Tax Municipal Real Estate (AIMI) on residential land, nor VAT on building at 23%,” he says.
The director believes that the ARI “has the maturity to evolve, never to end” and argues that the government should make foreigners part of the solution and not the problem. “Including the golden visa in the housing program was one of the solutions. The investors of the golden visa are willing to help the country, they like us and want their children in our universities,” he testifies.
benefit from visas gold for attracting innovation through, for example, modular construction, which is faster and cheaper, is another path indicated by Hugo Santos Ferreira.
The president of APPI proposes two more ways to reformulate the program, either by creating a social visawhich defines the obligation of foreigners to contribute to social security either through a green visa, “to combat the energy poverty of the country’s buildings, forcing investors to purchase buildings with high energy certifications”.
Rute Simão is a journalist for Dinheiro Vivo
Source: DN
