Cyprus Citizenship by Investment Programme was introduced in 2013 and since then has brought to country’s economy more than 4 billion euro of direct investment, Bloomberg reports. The income received from the programme is about 25% of Cyprus GDP.
In April 2017, Finance Minister Harris Georgiadis said that in 2016, about 2,000 passports were issued to citizens of non-EU countries. In most cases the citizenship was received by Russian citizens and their families.
According to the programme, foreign citizens can obtain Cyprus citizenship if they invest minimum of 2 million euro in securities, bonds, companies or real estate in Cyprus.
