Dominic Volek: When COVID started and there was a lockdown. if I was an American citizen, I could not go to Europe. That exposed a lot of very wealthy families there who realized that they were more fragile than they thought. And so they realized they should have more than one option. This is really what it all boils down to. The whole industry historically was built on someone from a country with a poor travel document as a passport, looking for a better travel document. But that has become completely secondary in terms of the discussions we have with families now who really just want optionality. It's not about displacement or moving, but it's about diversification.
Salman Siddiqui: Welcome to the Investment Immigration podcast by Uglobal.com, with weekly in-depth interviews with the world's leading investment immigration professionals. Hi everyone, welcome to the Investment Immigration podcast show. Today we are going to focus on investment immigration in Africa and specifically we're going to talk about Namibia. Now, we don't usually talk about Africa when we talk about investment immigration for some reason, but there's a lot happening there, especially Namibia, which is a country in southwest Africa. The government there is offering new incentives to foreign investors. And apart from all of this, we are going to also talk about some global trends happening all around the world. And for this, we have somebody perfect for the show. We have with us Dominic Volek. He's the Group Head of Private Clients at Henley and Partners. He's going to help us unpack what's happening in Africa. And hopefully he'll also discuss some global trends. So welcome to the show, Dominic.
Dominic Volek: Thank you very much. It's great to be here.
Salman Siddiqui: Thank you. So let's get straight into the heart of the matter, Dominic. Why does it make sense for an investor sitting in the US or say, the UK to gain residency by investment in an African country?
Dominic Volek: It's a very good question. What we've seen over the last couple of years, particularly from the sort of start of COVID and coming out the back end of COVID and not knowing what's next around the corner, what we see from a lot of our clients globally is a desire to have complete sort of geographical diversification in terms of where they and their families can go, whether it's short term or long term or medium term.
So we see more and more demand from our clients. A lot of sort of repeat clients that have done 1 or 2 existing residence and citizenship programs with us who now say: What do you have in South America? What's new in South East Asia? And of course, Africa now becomes part of that conversation. So there are a couple of reasons why we believe Namibia is very interesting; certainly for South African expats living in the various financial centers around the world, who probably at some point want to return back to southern Africa. It might not be South Africa itself. We see a lot of interest in Namibia. Namibia is an ex German colony and so there is already a lot of interest from Germans and other Europeans in Namibia. They they're very familiar with it from a tourism perspective. There are also a lot of very interesting investment opportunities, big oil and gas discoveries off the West Coast, green hydrogen projects. And so of course we see interest from China, from the Middle East.
DP World has invested significantly into the ports in Walvis Bay. So interestingly enough, we actually see quite a bit of demand and I had a talk with our team in the US earlier this week and they've started to receive a number of inquiries about Namibia in the US as well, not particularly a region which I thought we would see interest, but we're seeing it from everywhere at the moment.
Salman Siddiqui: Right. So before driving deep more about Namibia's program, I want to understand from you to get a sense from the global investor about their interest in Africa as an investment in destination. You don't hear about that much. And why do you think is that? Do you think it's a lack of awareness? People just don't know. I mean, I'm talking in a broad, general sense, not just about Namibia. How do you explain that?
Dominic Volek: I think a lack of awareness is one part of the equation and certainly a lack of options. So Africa, of course, is not known as an investment migration destination. Mauritius has had a relatively successful residence by investment program, primarily through real estate for a number of years. Again, very popular with South Africans due to proximity, and also very popular with the French. But it's rarely been the only option. Zanzibar is spoken about a residence by investment program. Now Namibia joins the party as probably only the second next to Mauritius that is really available and which will be available to investors. There are more to come though, for sure. As I said, we're very active in the government's advisory space around the world. We have been for the last 25 years in Africa is another region where I can tell you on good authority that there will be more options coming.
Salman Siddiqui: Very good to hear. And you mentioned that people from, say, South Africa would show interest. Or investors from, say, Germany or France would have an interest in that region. And there's a history of their countries interest also in Africa. So that sort of explains. But you mentioned a little bit about seeing interest from the US and are you seeing also interest from the UK in the region and what kind of interest are you hearing from the US? What are they saying to you?
Dominic Volek: Look, at the moment it's still very early days. We only really started talking about and sort of launched this as an option last week. So we have seen interest. If I think about where we're having discussions globally, as I said, the US, the UK, we've had interest out of Belgium, Germany. I received an inquiry this morning out of China with someone that has significant investments in Namibia already and once they have a broader discussion around bringing multiple investors. The interesting thing about Namibia is that it’s limited. So this is like a pilot project which the Namibian Investment Promotion Development Board, the NPDB, is looking to use to explore the viability of a true investor visa into Namibia. So this is like a ring fenced pilot project that's available and there's only about 5 or 600 units available to purchase in order to get residents. So seeing an interest everywhere and as I said, still relatively early, but it's been a very interesting start to see where the interest is coming from.
Salman Siddiqui: And I want to also understand the context about why is the government there now offering these sorts of options to foreign investors? Did Henley and Partners somehow get involved there to convince the government that this could be an option for them as a source of revenue? I mean, how did this shape up in that country?
Dominic Volek: There's a project development team behind the The President's Links Estate, which is this eco-friendly golf estate that now has the necessary approvals to sell real estate for residents. We have been speaking with the NPDB on a sort of ad-hoc basis over the years. They have been developing a more robust investor visa program, which is yet to be released. So they have been thinking about it for a while. But NPDB’s mandate sits under the President of Namibia’s office, and their mandate is to focus on promoting Namibia and inward investment. And so this project sort of sits a little bit under the tourism side. As I said, there's green hydrogen and all sorts of oil and gas and other projects that are available. But it's the same reason why any country launches an investment migration program: they can really be used if designed and implemented correctly and with the correct due diligence and checks on applicants.
There are a very innovative way for countries to raise capital. We refer to sovereign equity. Why would a country go to the international debt markets when they can design these programs correctly and raise basically free capital that comes to the country? It creates jobs, it stimulates tourism. And so there's a lot of economic effects that these programs bring. And we've seen this all around the world. We see it in the Caribbean through their citizenship by investment programs and throughout Europe. There are multiple programs in Thailand and Malaysia. So this is why countries do it, It's a good way to raise foreign direct investment and raise the profile of the country. And so Namibia has now seen this, and this is their opportunity to start to test the waters for it.
Salman Siddiqui: Right. Namibia's case, there's a broader investment immigration program, but what you're talking about is a specific project. So if you could talk a little bit more about how is that different and what specific other requirements for that? What is the red tape involved in getting involved in that project? And could you also talk about the minimum real real estate investment threshold for that? I've heard it's $300,000 around that ballpark. So if you could talk a little bit more about that.
Dominic Volek: Yeah, sure. So as I mentioned, this is a sort of ring fenced pilot project. So unlike a lot of other countries that offer investment migration where terms of real estate, you can buy anything, or sometimes they're in designated areas, or sometimes there's a handful of government -approved projects. In this case, because it is pilot, there is only one project available. And so it is a large, as I said, ecofriendly golf estate tha will be built in the dunes just outside Walvis Bay. And the idea is that these will be luxury villas. There are retirement villages, but it's a sort of self-contained community built around a golf course. There are broader plans for a hotel and casino and retail. And so it's quite a large project in totality. But right now what’s available are various villa sizes at various price points, ranging from about $316K up to $800-900K that's available. These are very much luxury villas and apartments. It's a Greenfield project. So of course these will take a while to be built. They're aiming to break ground probably around October. The good thing, though, as I said, what's attractive about it, for a lot of clients that we've been having discussions with, is it's a great sort of plan B.
You will have some applicants that will look at this as a retirement option to physically move there. Some will use this and go there with a work permit and actually run their job there. I think if there’s anything COVID has taught us is that you don't have to live outside the factory door anymore. So we do see possibly a lot of high net worth business owners, entrepreneurs in South Africa using this as their base.
And as I said, for those that look at it more as a plan B or a plan C, as we've seen more and more clients start to do two, three, four different programs to have that geographical diversification. Namibia is a great option. Europe was never a typical hunting ground for the investment migration industry because everyone living in Europe usually has a very good passport from a travel perspective. They live in a very safe and secure country. But of course, rewind 12, 14 months ago when Russia and Ukraine began. What's going on there? All of a sudden we started to get inundated with calls from people in Europe.
But what are the options outside of Europe? As I said, what's in South America? Let's discuss Uruguay. Let's talk about Panama. How do these residence programs work? What's in Southeast Asia in terms of Malaysia? Has there my second home program, you've got Thailand Elite Visa.
From a time zone perspective, Africa is amazing for the European Time Zone. And so as much as we saw a lot of interest in the Middle East, particularly Dubai and the Golden visas available in UAE and Ras Al-Khaima, and places even further afield in terms of some sort of a doomsday scenario, Namibia is also quite interesting. It's the same reason why Australia and New Zealand started to become very popular in the US. It became the sort of billionaire's bolthole. It was attractive to have residents in a country as far away from any potential conflict or volatility as possible. And so Namibia offers a great solution there for Europeans in particular.
Salman Siddiqui: That's an interesting point, and I was actually thinking about talking about this more later on about the impact of the Ukraine war on the investment immigration program. So thanks for bringing this up and we'll talk a little bit more later on. But before that, let's talk also a little bit about the criteria that the foreign investors will have to meet in order to qualify for this project in Namibia. So what is the red tape involved? What is the government looking in terms of the documents there? If you could shed some light about that.
Dominic Volek: As it stands, also touching back on the Ukraine topic, there is no sort of blacklisted nationality. Anyone can apply for the program as long as they go through and pass the necessary due diligence checks in terms of their personal background and of course in terms of any funds coming into Namibia through the banking system, the source of funds would need to be cleared.
In terms of the application itself, it's relatively straightforward and we also have a really efficient website and online portal where everything can actually be done by the investor without the help of anyone really. You can go onto the website, you can select your plot so you can see what's available in terms of the different units, and then you can start the application immediately.
As with any investment migration program, there's a checklist of documents we need around birth certificates, marriage certificates, police clearance certificates, all the normal sort of application documents. And then with that, we work with the the Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration with the application processing time. It's pretty quick when we compare it to a lot of other investment migration countries. So once we prepare the application and submit it probably within three months, the residence or work permit will be issued and that's not reliant on the project being complete. So as I said, the project will still take time to get built, but the work permits, if someone had to start this process now, they would put a deposit down for the property. They would need to transfer the funds into a lawyer's trust account in Namibia or just provide a bank guarantee. And with that we can prepare and submit the application and three months later they will have what is technically a five year renewable work permit resident in Namibia that gets renewed after five years. And once an individual has held that for a total of seven years, they can apply for permanent residence as well.
Salman Siddiqui: Are there any language requirements part of this process?
Dominic Volek: No language requirements. I mean, the main language spoken in Namibia is often English and of course quite a bit of German and a bit of Portuguese, but there's no language requirement. If we compare it to other commonly known options, there's no minimum physical stay requirement. The applicants can include their spouse and minor children, adult children as well. As long as we can prove that they are actually financially dependent, that's also possible in terms of the family application. And yeah, as I said, processing time is nice and efficient. So in terms of red tape, honestly, it's pretty straightforward when we look at other options around the world.
Salman Siddiqui: Right. And the reason I also asked about the language question was I was just imagining that somebody say, for example, an investor from China who wants to move to Africa for business and might not know the languages you talked about. So just something for them to know.
Dominic Volek: Yeah. And in this case, that wouldn't be an issue at all.
Salman Siddiqui: Okay, good. And another question that is linked to this is you talked about the minimum real estate investment threshold is around for this particular project is about $300,000, $360,000. Now, I'm thinking that an investor who is looking for options outside the EU or other parts of the world, he or she or they might think that there are other comparable alternatives available, like for example, in that around that ballpark money they can get options in Turkey, for example. And there are other options in the Middle East, for example. So how do you convince those sorts of people to put their money in this project in Namibia?
Dominic Volek: It very much depends on the applicant, on the client and what their interest is. I mean, if you're from a pure price point, the most natural direct competitor for Namibia would be probably Mauritius, which starts at 375,000. If you look at purely from what you're getting in terms of dollar per square meter, Namibia is offering a lot more value in that regard if you compare it to the European options. Turkey obviously now is up to 400,000 its citizenship. I think someone that does Turkey will do Turkey for a very different reason than someone doing Namibia. As I said, I think a lot of high-net-worth South Africans would look at this, and also South African expats.
Namibia is also very interesting from a tax perspective because it is a territorial tax system. So if you spend enough time there to actually qualify as a tax resident, you're only paying tax on local sourced income and not worldwide income, which is very different situation in South Africa. As an example, in Namibia, there's no capital gains tax, there's no inheritance tax or gift tax. All very important things for high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individuals in terms of their estate planning. And then as I said as well, I think we'll see a lot of interest from ultra-high-net-worth clients that see this as a third or fourth place to go in terms of volatility. So for that type of profile client, $300,000 or $400,000 for an amazing apartment or villa in Namibia and a safe place to go far away; I think that's quite attractive. And these are clients that already may have done Malta. They have a Caribbean citizenship; they've got a Dubai Golden Visa and apartments in the Palm or something. And so in Namibia I think is quite an easy choice for them.
Salman Siddiqui: Thanks for mentioning also the tax system and how it is attractive to foreign investors. But I also want to learn a little bit more of the kind of challenges you face when trying to convince clients about investing in a residency in Africa, about a country they never heard of. For example, an investor might say, I know about Dubai. I would rather put my money there. I would feel safer there. But then how do you convince them that, Hey, Namibia, you should look into that option?
Dominic Volek: Yeah, we start by showing them a very nice video of all the beautiful sand dunes and animals and things in Namibia. But it's a good question. Look, I mean, it's honestly, it's no different to when we started. We started our business in Asia 10, 15 years ago. And for sure, there's a lot of education at the start of these when we start to launch or start to assist clients with these programs. So it's the same as 5, 10 years ago when we started to speak about Cyprus or Greece. Maybe not Greece, but Cyprus for sure. Malta definitely, the Caribbean. You meet someone high-net-worth-individual in Dhaka, in Bangladesh, or someone in the Philippines; you need to be able to explain a bit about this country. And so usually when we present to clients or bankers or anyone that we work with, we generally start with a country overview and give a bit more information on the country. And that might include a video. But some of the basic information around the country is always useful. And then of course we focus on the benefits that residence or citizenship offers. And so in Namibia's case, there's quite a bit there. And so as I said, it's educating the audience. It won't be for everyone, that's clear. But in this particular case, it's also extremely limited. So we're quite confident that even after the first week of launching it, that this will be very successful.
Salman Siddiqui: Okay. And let's now move on to what we were talking a little bit earlier about the impact of the Ukraine war on investment in immigration programs around the world. So I want to get that perspective from you. There's a lot of anxiety in Europe, for example, especially given the war. Are you seeing a movement of this thinking? You mentioned that people do want options outside of Europe. So what kind of trends have you observed since this war began a year ago?
Dominic Volek: A couple of things. Of course, for Russian applicants, things became more difficult and certainly more limited in terms of choice. So the bulk of the European residents and citizenship program ceased accepting applications. It's been a little bit up and down in the Caribbean. Initially, some stopped and some were still accepting Russian applicants, then some reopened and then closed again. And I think this will happen again quite soon. So it's been quite difficult, I think, for Russian applicants, particularly because a lot of them, unfortunately, have been put into the same bucket and treated the same, which I don't think is actually fair. So for them, the options are more limited. Turkey citizenship by investment is still very much available and very popular, at least up until the end of last year. The Montenegro citizenship program was very interesting for Russian applicants, although that closed at the end of 2022. Everyone knows that there's been a lot of interest into the UAE in this regard. So from an options perspective, that's certainly become limited. But as we can see now with Namibia and I think with some more that will launch in the coming months, that there will again be more options. The governments that ultimately make the decision and process these applications and do the due diligence.
They of course, have had to become a little bit more cautious in terms of this. Even all the service providers like ourselves constantly monitoring sanctions lists and just being aware of who the clients are and how things are. It's quite dynamic. At least it was in the first 6 or 12 months since that conflict started. So for the Russians, things have definitely become more complicated, as is banking and a lot of other things that they need for Ukrainians. Of course, they also have become even more difficult when we look at it from an investment migration perspective, because the ability for governments and these sorts of forensic due diligence companies to actually conduct their due diligence is not always possible in Ukraine itself. But on the flip side of that, of course, the demand is significantly higher than it's ever been. So we always describe the industry as being sort of anti-fragile. So the more volatility, the more chaos there is, the more the demand for these sorts of alternative residence and citizenship increases.
And then, as I said earlier, what we've seen now in Europe is, is a surge in interest in having that Plan B outside of Europe. So the German high-net-worth individual now really understands the reason why if I have the financial capacity, if I'm a wealthy individual and it makes no sense to have one citizenship and one residence, regardless of where you are living or what citizenship you hold. If you have the financial capacity you should not limit yourself. And this is what's happened in the US. The US has taken off significantly in the last 2 to 3 years because they're allowed dual citizenship. Everyone's allowed multi residence. It's the biggest population of high-net-worth-individuals in the world.
When COVID started and there was a lockdown and if I was an American citizen, I could not go to Europe. That exposed a lot of very wealthy families there who realized that they were more fragile than they thought. And so they realized I should have more than one option. And this is really what it all boils down to. The whole industry historically was built on someone from a country with a poor travel document as a passport looking for a better travel document. But that has become completely secondary in terms of the discussions we have with families now who really just want optionality. It's not about displacement or moving, but it's about diversification.
Salman Siddiqui: Right. And I'm so glad you mentioned all of that, and especially in terms of the impact that it has on so many people. The war is having an impact on so many people and how that chaos is also giving a boost to the industry, something that we also saw during the pandemic.
Recently we saw countries, Ireland, Portugal, Spain being on the path of ending their golden residency programs there. Do you think we're going to see more of this trend in Europe?
Dominic Volek: It's possible. At the end of last year when those comments were made in Portugal around the fact that the Golden visa had served its purpose. Of course there was there was a bit of panic, but then everything calmed down. It was voted again in Parliament and it was a line item in the 2023 budget, so everyone went back to normal. But then of course, we had this sort of bombshell in on 16th February where the announcement was made of the intention to close it. That still has a way to go. The bill was passed over the weekend. There's been no change to the law yet, but surely there's an intention there. So we've still got about nine days of public consultation on this. And so we'll see where that goes. As always, investment migration programs and their impact or the way they're often portrayed is really more often than not, a storm in a teacup.
If you look at Portugal's case in particular, one of the main reasons they're citing for potentially closing the golden visa is the housing crisis. And you know that housing prices have escalated because of the golden visa. But if you really look at the numbers, there have been 11 or 12,000 investors through the golden visa over the last just over a decade. That's an average of 1000 real estate purchases a year, which I don't think is going to shift any real estate market. Portugal, of course, has a very interesting tax system, the non-habitual residence tax system. And for sure, a lot of Europeans have taken advantage of that and have moved into Portugal to become non-habitual residents. And there's a far greater number doing that than have done the golden visa.
We'll see what happens. I mean, Ireland, of course, is closed. Portugal, we will see what happens over the next two weeks. So everyone, I think, is watching that quite closely. But there is pressure. I think foreign investors and foreign wealthy people are always a relatively easy target for politicians. And so we will see how that plays out. We strongly believe more and more programs will come online. The window has been left open. Maybe the golden visa as we know it will close, whether it's applied retrospectively to 16th of February or there's a bit of a grace period for the next six months, we don't know. This will all be revealed in the coming days.
Salman Siddiqui: Right. But Dominic, you're the group head of private clients. So I have to ask you this on this point. There must be a lot of anxiety about that. The options in Europe are becoming limited. So do you get a lot of phone calls from your clients talking about what's happening in Europe, especially for investors who have already put their money there? They're maybe in the middle of getting their residences or maybe they have to renew their residences or they've put their money there. What are you hearing from your clients?
Dominic Volek: For sure. There's a lot of anxiety and a lot of uncertainty as well. We've spoken to multiple law firms in Portugal around this topic, and unfortunately, there is no clear answer at this stage. Like I say, we've got 8 or 9 days to go and we should then have a lot of clarity. So for prudence sake, and we're obviously completely transparent with clients and the general guidance is depending on where they are in the stage. Some have already made investments, others are only just getting started with bank account opening and getting their tax number. So depending on where they are at this stage, the prudent thing, of course, would be to sit and wait and see where all this goes. But we're also prepared and already having discussions with multiple clients around. In a worst case scenario, there are still a lot of options in Europe. So Greece, Spain, Italy, Latvia, Malta, if they're willing to extend their budgets a bit. So there are still a lot of options in Europe and there are a lot of options outside of Europe.
I think if anything, what we've seen now is that Europe is not the be all and end all in terms of investment migration. It's the same discussion around the Caribbean and having Schengen access. Schengen access, of course, is great. I have a South African passport, so it's also a big thing for me to be able to get visa free access to the Schengen. But I think there's a huge market for and for sure programs will come online in the coming year or two where it's citizenship by investment without Schengen access. And there are a lot of different reasons why people will find that attractive as well.
Salman Siddiqui: Right. And we're coming close to the end of our show. So before I let you go, I have to ask you also about where in the world do you see countries offering more golden visa programs in the near future? Do you think it's going to happen in the Middle East or more in Africa as options, especially in the EU, become limited or restricted?
Dominic Volek: Yeah. There's over 100 countries in the world that have some form of regulation or legislation in place for investment migration. And so as we know, there's only about 30 or 40 that have a sort of marketable, successful and attractive program. So I think there are already a lot of options out there which probably people don't know about, which with the right sort of tweaks in terms of making sure that they appeal to the right investor. It's possible as we've seen Panama in Uruguay and Costa Rica and so there's quite a bit in South America. I think that will become interesting. The US with the EB5 program is very much a popular option. Africa, as we've discussed, Namibia now probably only the second real legitimate and marketed option available now, but there will be more there.
As you say, the Middle East as well. Dubai has had incredible success with their golden visa for sure. Some of their neighboring countries will also look at these options. If we go across to South East Asia, a lot of these nomad visas are becoming very popular. Bali will launch something quite soon. Thailand has multiple options. In Australia, we'll see what happens there. There's currently a review underway, so in terms of the quotas, the investor visas are not at this moment actually available. They [Australia] still have their global talent visa. So I think it's obviously a very dynamic space and for sure we will see a lot happening.
But honestly, it's across all regions because coming out of COVID, a lot of these countries are looking to refill their coffers. There have been job support schemes and furlough schemes and various economic stimulus packages. And so they need to think a bit more innovatively in terms of raising capital to fix things at home.
Salman Siddiqui: Thank you so much for sharing all of that. And Dominic, in the end, I'll just like to give you 30 seconds to maybe talk more about why Namibia is a good option for investors who are listening to our show. You have 30 seconds to make your pitch.
Dominic Volek: Thank you. Yeah. So the Namibian residence by investment option, which is only available at the President’s Links Estate, I think will be attractive to different people for different reasons. We see interest from neighboring countries in southern Africa, like South Africa, particularly because Namibia is very interesting from a tax perspective. So I think those that physically move there and spend time there will certainly benefit from the right tax planning and structuring in that regard. And from an international market perspective, we certainly see a lot of interest from Europe, Germany in particular as an ex colony. It's great for tourism and there are a lot of investment opportunities where investors from the Middle East are going. And so being able to get residents, particularly if you have some large investment that requires executives to move there, living on a golf estate with a renewable residence and a bit more permanency in terms of your ability to reside there, we believe will be very attractive to a lot of international investors.
Salman Siddiqui: And with that, we've come to the end of the show. Thank you so much, Dominic, for sharing your views on why Africa is an attractive destination for investors around the world, and especially Namibia. So thank you so much for that. And last shout out to my listeners that please keep listening to our show and we'll be talking about more programs from around the world. This was your host, Salman Siddiqui from Berlin, and sees you next time.
Salman Siddiqui: You've been listening to the Investment Immigration podcast by Uglobal.com. Join us again soon for more in depth conversations exploring investment immigration opportunities from around the world.

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