An eventual decision to annul the Citizenship by Investment Program will cause only losses to the Republic of Moldova. Also, the Republic of Moldova risks earning a bad reputation before any potential investor, said Paddy Blewer, Group Public Relations Director at Henley & Partners, which is the Moldovan Government’s partner in implementing the Citizenship by Investment Program.
In a news conference at IPN, Paddy Blewer said that during over 20 years while this program has been implemented in a number of states, he saw attempts to annul it and these attempts were made by parties, especially opposition ones. However, the given parties, after undertaking governance, continued these programs with particular changes. The reason for the initiatives and statements concerning the annulment of this program in the Republic of Moldova is purely political in character and the advantages of this program for the country are not examined.
The company’s representative said that such developed countries as the U.S., the UK, Malta, Cyprus implemented successfully such programs that are a very good method of obtaining additional financing for the state budget and of attracting necessary and important investments for developing the infrastructure of the given countries.
Asked about the moratorium instituted on the granting of citizenship by investment, Paddy Blewer said such a move affected both the processing of the submitted applications and the receipt of new applications. “We are ready to have a dialogue with the competent bodies of the Republic of Moldova. At the moment, we didn’t see evident risks of those that were mentioned by mates from the Republic of Moldova. I’m sure that we have a well-thought-out system that brings additional revenues to the Republic of Moldova. We are ready to resume this program when the respective decision is taken by the authorities of the Republic of Moldova,” noted Paddy Blewer.
Asked about the value of the losses that Moldova could incur if the program is suspended, the representative of Henley & Partners said any activity contract includes earlier termination clauses, but these are confidential. “I do not know all these details, but definitely there are provisions concerning the annulment of the contract before time. At the same time, Moldova made particular commitments to investors and these really started to invest and it is important that the Republic of Moldova should honor its obligations to these persons,” explained Paddy Blewer.
According to him, measures to minimize eventual risks are taken within the Citizenship by Investment Program and the risks are practically reduced to zero. Among the measures are the number and nature of the examinations to which the applicants for citizenship are subjected.
