Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott During An Official Visit To Putrajaya, Malaysia
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott speaks at a joint news conference with his Malaysian counterpart Najib Razak during an official visit in Putrajaya September 6, 2014. Reuters/Olivia Harris

Australia has announced a new category of visa named "premium investor visa" with effect from July1, 2015, offering immigrants permanent residency if they invest A$15 million or more in the country. The new reform will be a logical extension to Australia's flagship "Significant Investor Programme," already in force. Under SIP, those investing A$5 million and above will be entitled for a four-year visa..

Prime Minister Tony Abbott and the ministers of Immigration and Trade on Tuesday announced this in a joint statement. They said the government will reform the visa programmes to attract high net-worth individuals to Australia, reported Gulf News.

Impact Of Vias Reforms

The PM said the changes in visa regime are aimed at bettering the flow of foreign direct investment without lowering the safeguards on existing migration programmes. Under the new reforms, the government will undertake periodic assessments of the areas where the investments are made so that they are in sync with the government's "national investment priorities."

Australia has already issued 436 Significant Investor visas from November 2012 till the end of September 2014, according to the data from the Immigration department.

Skilled Visa Review

Australia also announced the review of its 457-class skilled visa programme. The previous Labour government had tightened it, citing abuse by employers and disadvantage to local workers.

Under the amended norms, greater flexibility will be exercised in English-language skills. Also there will be a revamp on the sponsorship and visa application processes. Though Abbott did not specify the industries that might benefit from the skilled visa changes, he stressed that was not aimed at substituting overseas labour for domestic labour.

The BBC in its report said the undercurrent of Australian government's new immigration rules are aimed at luring wealthy immigrants from China. Ever since Australia started the fast-track permanent residency in 2012, nearly 90 percent of the successful applicants have been from China. Also Australia wants to diversify as the mining boom is winding down.

The push for permanent residency visa also coincides with China's crackdown on corruption, where it has been targeting corrupt officials who are allegedly trying to transfer funds abroad.

Source of Funds

In Australia, lawyers have been demanding the Australian government to enforce more transparency with rules that can seek the source of funding used by investors. That is an important yardstick in assessing the investors while expediting visa approvals. But Australia's new announcement makes no mention of that. Rossana Gonzalez, an immigration expert in Australia, defended that. She told Reuters that there are problems in disclosing the actual ownership of a bank account because of secrecy reasons or tax issues. Australia is upbeat that its SIP programme has attracted $2.18 billion so far and the new refinements will trigger more investments.