The Minister of Immigration and the Minister of Economic Development have jointly announced that a new Investor Policy – the Migrant Investment Policy is effective as of 27 July 2009. This replaces the existing Active Investment Migrant Policy.
For more information, see:
New Entrepreneur Plus category
A new Entrepreneur Plus Category has also been announced. This category complements the existing Entrepreneur category and offers a faster path to residence for applicants who create at least three full-time jobs for New Zealand citizens or residents and invest NZ$500,000 in their business. The English language requirement of IELTS (International English Language Testing System) 5 will also be relaxed to IELTS 4 for the existing Long Term Business Visa, the Entrepreneur, and the new Entrepreneur Plus categories.
While a new high level policy framework has been agreed to by the New Zealand Government, work on the actual Entrepreneur Plus Category policy detail is in the early stages of development. It is anticipated that specific information about the new policy and the changes to the existing policy will be available here in November 2009.