Ep. 29 – Aprender Inglês com leitura – How seeling citizenship is now big business?
Ep. 29 – Aprender Inglês com leitura – How seeling citizenship is now big business? | Inglês online com podcasts!
Teacher Ca: Podcast – Aprenda Inglês Online. The best way to improve your English.
Hi there! Welcome guys. Eu sou a Teacher Ca. Vamos começar falando da melhor plataforma de
Inglês online pra quem quer aprender e praticar Inglês com professores nativos. Acesse o site do
Cambly.com; C-A-M-B-L-Y, e tenha essa experiência. Mas use o código ‘teacherca’; tudo junto, pra
ter uma aula totalmente grátis. Além de aulas pra você adulto, o Cambly tem aulas voltadas para o
seu filho, o Cambly kids. No episódio de hoje faremos uma leitura de um artigo com o tutor
Semon, do Cambly, sobre como a venda da cidadania é agora um grande negócio.
Você pode acompanhar o reading acessando o link na descrição.
M: Let it begin.
Semon: How selling citizenship is now big business
You can be born into it, you can earn it, and you can lose it. Increasingly, you can also invest
your way into it.
The it; is citizenship of a particular country, and it is a more fluid concept than ever before. Go
back 50 years, and it was uncommon for countries to allow dual citizenship, but it is now almost
universal.
More than half of the world’s nations now have citizenship-through-investment programmes.
According to one expert, Swiss lawyer Christian Kalin, it is now a global industry worth $25bn
(£20bn) a year.
Mr Kalin, who has been dubbed Mr Passport, is the chairman of Henley; Partners, one of the
world’s biggest players in this rapidly growing market. His global business helps wealthy individuals
and their families acquire residency or citizenship in other countries.
He says that our traditional notions of citizenship are outdated. This is one of the few things left
in the world that is tied to bloodlines, or where you are born, he says. He argues that a rethink is
very much due.
Teacher Ca: Como vender a cidadania é um grande negócio agora.
Você pode nascer com a cidadania, ou você pode ganhar ou até mesmo perder. Cada vez mais
você também pode investir nesse negócio. Se você voltar aos anos 50 você verá que era muito
incomum alguém com dupla cidadania, mas hoje em dia é quase universal.
Semon: It’s super unfair, he says, explaining that where we are born is by no means down to our
own skill or talent, but instead pure luck. What is wrong with regarding citizenship like a
membership, he adds. "And what is wrong with admitting talented people who will contribute?"
There are those who support his argument. But for many, the idea that passports, so tied to
identity, are in some way a commodity, doesn’t sit well.
We followed the citizenship trail to the tiny Pacific island nation of Vanuatu. Since the country
introduced its new citizenship scheme four years ago, it’s seen an explosion of interest. Passports
now provide the biggest source of its government's revenues.
For many aspiring Vanuatu passport holders, the biggest draw is visa-free travel throughout
Europe.
Most foreign recipients of Vanuatu passports never even step foot in the country. Instead they
apply for their citizenship in offices overseas, like the licensed Vanuatu citizenship broker PRG
Consulting, based in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong is one of the world's biggest citizenship marketplaces. In a cafe at Hong Kong airport,
we met the citizenship agent MJ, a private businessman who helps an increasing number of
mainland Chinese obtain a second or even third passport.
They don’t feel safe [in China], he says of his clients. They want access to Europe to open a bank account, to buy a property or to start businesses.
Teacher Ca: Segundo o advogado Christian Kalin, apelidado como Mr Passport, agora é uma
indústria global que vale 25 bilhões por ano. Para muitos aspirantes e portadores de passaportes,
Vanuatu, o maior atrativo são as viagens sem visto pra Europa. Hong Kong é um dos maiores
mercados de cidadania do mundo.
Semon: Citizenship is a competitive global market, and for many small and island nations, notably
in the Caribbean – the price for a passport is around $150,000. The cost of a Vanuatu passport is
said to be around the same level.
How much does it cost to buy a passport?
Antigua and Barbuda; from $100,000
St Kitt’s and Nevis; from $150,000
Montenegro; from $274,000
Portugal; from $384,000
Spain; from $550,000
Bulgaria; from $560,000
Malta; from $1m
US; from $900,000 invested in a business creating 10 jobs
UK; from $2.5m
A Vanuatu passport, MJ explains, is so fast; to arrange (you can get one in just 30 days), and that
helps make it a popular choice. But Mr Kalin and others caution that Vanuatu has a reputation for
corruption. As a result, Henley & Partners and others do not deal with the Vanuatu citizenship
programme.
However, this doesn’t stop the interest from China. A few years ago Hong Kong television channels
aired catchy TV advertisements promoting Vanuatu citizenship, aimed at the territory’s steady
flow of visitors from the mainland.
So how many Chinese clients actually visit Vanuatu, after receiving citizenship? Maybe one in 10,
guesses MJ.
Teacher Ca: Quanto o custa um passaporte?
O preço muda de acordo de onde você tira. O agente da cidadania MJ, explica que o passaporte
Vanuatu é muito rápido de ser tirado. Em até 30 dias você tira. O que o torna uma escolha
popular. Kalin e outros alertam que Vanuatu tem reputação de corrupção.
Semon: Vanuatu is a pacific country that comprises some 80 islands
Port Vila is the capital of Vanuatu, and a city of contrasts. The roads are often flooded and scarred
with potholes. There’s not a single set of traffic lights, but congestion is worsening thanks to the
growing number of shiny four-wheel drives.
It’s a tax haven, and recently rejoined the EU's "blacklist" of countries, over transparency and
corruption issues.
The country’s people – known as Ni Vanuatu – were only officially recognised as citizens themselves
in 1980, when the country achieved independence. Previously it was an Anglo-French
condominium called the New Hebrides, and the people are scattered over a daisy chain of more
than 80 islands.
Less than 40 years ago, they were stateless. A fact not lost on former Prime Minister Barak Sope.
"I didn’t have a passport until 1980," he says, sitting in a hotel and casino on Port Vila’s main road.
"I had to travel with a piece of paper the British and the French gave to me. It was humiliating."
Mr Sope says it is a betrayal for Vanuatu to sell its citizenship, and points to the flood of Chinese
investment in the region. The Chinese have so much more money than us, he says exasperated.
The Chinese investment is criticised by locals such as Mr Sope, who complain that the Chinese
companies keep all the money and only employ Chinese labour.
Vanuatu’s all-male government, one of only three countries in the world where women are
entirely excluded from politics, was not keen to speak to us about its citizenship scheme. But we
tracked down a government-appointed citizenship agent, Bill Bani, who explains his take on the
initiative.
Teacher Ca: Vanuatu é um país como cadeia com mais de 80 ilhas. A capital de Vanuatu, Port Vila,
é uma cidade de contrastes. É um paraíso fiscal que voltou recentemente a listra negra por
questão de transparência e corrupção. Só em 1980 que o país alcançou a sua independência. O
seu povo foi oficialmente reconhecido como cidadão neste ano. Menos de 40 anos atrás, eles
eram apátridas. O ex 1° ministro, Barak Sope, diz que o esquema da cidadania é uma traição.
We have to look at Vanuatu on a global scale, he says. Other countries sell passports to make
their living, we don’t have a lot of natural resources. It’s bringing in a lot of money to Vanuatu."
But for the mainly rural population, the policy has been highly controversial since its inception in
2015.
Anne Pakoa, a community leader, shows us around a typical village made up of corrugated iron
shacks. It’s just 10 minutes; drive down a dirt road from the shops and restaurants of the capital
but feels a world away.
Anne says that local communities aren’t seeing the money from the passport sales, despite
promises that the scheme would rebuild infrastructure and homes after the devastating Cyclone
Pam in 2015.
Teacher Ca: Bill Bone diz que o esquema da cidadania é uma maneira vital de Vanuatu ganhar
dinheiro. Ele diz: “temos que olhar Vanuatu em escala global”. Outros países vendem passaportes
para ganhar a vida, e como Vanuatu não tem muitos recursos naturais, esta é uma forma de trazer
dinheiro para o país. Mas para a população, principalmente a rural, a política tem sido altamente
controversa desde 2015. Anne, líder da comunidade, diz que as comunidades não estão vendo o
dinheiro das vendas de passaporte. Apesar das promessas de que o plano reconstruiria a
infraestrutura e as casas após a devastadora ciclone Pam em 2015.
Semon: Our ancestors died for our freedom. Now people are carrying the same green passport I
carry? For $150,000? Where is the money? I think this has to stop, she says.
Susan, another woman from the same village, shows us a dirty well. I want the government to
provide a running tap, so that the children can have a shower, and drink clean and safe water,
she says.
Teacher Ca: Esse foi o reading com o professor Semon do Cambly. Eu sou a Teacher Ca e espero
vocês aqui no próximo episódio. Take care.
