The Macao Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM) did not approve any residency applications in the first half of 2020.
According to data released yesterday, IPIM received two new residence applications based on “major investment” and 38 new applications based on “management and technical personnel.” None of the applications were approved for either of the categories.
The lack of approvals comes as the former president of IPIM is standing trial for alleged irregularities in the residency application process.
Last year, IPIM received three new residency applications based on “major investment” and 111 new applications based on “management and technical personnel” in total.
No applications were approved for the “major investment” category and only 13 applications from the second category were approved,
The number of approved applications dropped markedly after some of the institute’s top officials were removed from their roles in 2018 during an anti-corruption probe.
In 2018, the Commission Against Corruption criticized IPIM for failing to properly assess temporary residency applications granted by the institute.
Since then, reports have been growing of non-permanent residents who have not had any response from the government since submitting their application to renew their Macau IDs. In many cases, the applicants have been waiting years without any information from IPIM.
A non-permanent resident card is normally issued to skilled expats for seven years before a permanent resident card is issued. Renewals are needed in between those seven years.
IPIM previously told the Times that it is “running an overall review of all works relevant to the approval and supervision of temporary residency applications based on major investments and technical qualifications.”
The investment institute also said that it was investigating all approved applications and assessing approval procedures in general.
Former IPIM president Jackson Chang was placed under investigation in October 2018 for allegedly relaxing the requirements of his bureau for approving technical and investment residency applications.
Investigations were also conducted on several other high-ranking IPIM officials, including former director Glória Batalha Ung.
Last month, Chang refuted all the allegations during a court session. He said that he was innocent and had never practiced any illegal act that would result in him losing his civil servant job, which he had been in for 30 years.
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