AKIPRESS.COM - Businessmen who have investments in selected European, Caribbean and North American states can now use their investments to obtain citizenship there and access more than 100 other countries without visas, Arton Capital said, a Dubai-based financial services firm specializing in international immigration and citizenship law for wealthy individuals, which opened its African office in Cape Town on March 5.

Ten countries subscribe to its Global Citizen program. The Caribbean members are Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada and St. Kitts and Nevis. The others are Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, Hungary, the UK and the US.

With the establishment of a South African office, Arton said interest in obtaining South African or Namibian passports had come mostly from Chinese businessmen doing business across Africa. “The law in South Africa or Namibia does not have any specific provisions towards investors and their families, but there is a lot of interest,” Arton Capital chief executive Armand Arton noticed.

Local investors, who have been advised by Arton Capital on its Global Citizen program in the past five years, mostly have investments in Canada and a few have lived in Dubai.

“People were not aware of the options around the world for South African businessmen to secure European citizenship without having to relocate,” Arton said.

Arton Capital is planning a second office in Johannesburg, and in the next 2-3 years it will open offices in other African states, starting with Nigeria.

Each of the 10 subscribed countries have a unique set of benefits. Citizenship in the Caribbean countries, for instance, gives visa-free access to the Schengen Area, which consists of 26 European countries, and sometimes Canada too. The number of countries that one can travel to with such citizenship varies from 100 to 130 and includes Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Turkey.