Bizcuits | Bonus points for bonus assets

Leanda Lee

Five years ago, I wrote to the Chief Executive. My message may have fallen on deaf ears, maybe not, but nothing ventured, nothing gained, and I felt it worthwhile raising a number of issues in the immigration assessment process in the hope that, at some time in the future, applications for residency would assess contributions to our Macau community in broader terms than merely economic ones.

I welcome the fact that IPIM now offers much more information publicly than in past years about what is to be assessed and why. The preliminary self-assessment tool on IPIM’s website is very helpful, both to determine potential eligibility and to understand what criteria are important. For those who want more detail, there are guidelines available in English now. In earlier days, it was hit and miss, try it and see, with the corresponding waste of time, anticipation, frustration and disappointment, and the inevitable reliance on word of mouth advice of those who had gone before. Future residents are no longer working in a Macau applicant haze.

The application process for managerial personnel and technical and professional residency now includes requests for more information than previously about the family members that come ‘attached’ to the application. However, currently it is still the main applicant who is assessed on their income level, their technical expertise and educational qualifications which are “considered particularly beneficial to the Macao SAR”. This is all with the view of assessing how they may contribute to economic development.

I have two concerns with this process and these criteria: the first is the sole focus on the main applicant, and the second is the lost opportunity of looking beyond Macau’s economic needs. Granted, it is difficult to change the stated ambit of economic development that underpins these residency applications when assessment is done by the body that exists precisely to promote business via trade and onshore investment.

When an individual brings their family along, there are more resources available in this cluster of individuals than just the main applicant. The assessment system as it stands now has lost sight of this and appears to view those who are attached as burdens upon the community rather than productive assets. One criterion for assessment is “the number of family members to be included in the temporary residency extension”. The presumption of the more the merrier appears false here.

Family members may have much to offer the community. Spouses are generally equally, or better, educated and qualified than the main applicant. If granted residency the trailing spouse will also have the right to work, volunteer and become valued community members.  Although a CV of the spouse might be requested by IPIM, it is strange that no proof of academic qualifications is required. Should some allowance in the residency assessment be given to how the whole family may add vibrance to community life through work, sporting, cultural, literary, entrepreneurial and educational activities, among many others, we might begin to see parenthetically a broader diversification of economic and community activity.

As such, a points system which while assessing the main applicant for their foundational contribution to economic development, could also offer bonus or compensatory points for what the family as a whole brings. It could look at a broad array of capital our community wants to see in immigrants. These might include investment in residential property or other local assets, language ability, representation in local and international cultural competitions and sporting events, and the level of activity in community initiatives and cultural outputs.

If we aim to accept only a select few new residents each year, then lets value, utilise and reward them for all they have to bring, not just their meagre economic value.