Portuguese government bring back golden visa scheme.

Announcing on Thursday 16th July 2015 the golden visa scheme will be reinstated, as the program was suspended due to the burst of a corruption scandal earlier this month.

The golden visa scheme was announced in 2012, when Portugal was in debt crisis. The program grants special visa to those foreigners who are ready to invest 500,000 Euros on a house or apartment, capital transfer of 1million Euros or create 10 jobs in Portugal economy.

After surfacing a corruption scandal the visas were frozen, the immigration laws repealed many provisions related to golden visas. But, the program was not replaced with any other.

On Thursday, government spokesperson Luis Marques Guedes said “it would be shame to suspend a program as Portugal loses investment from the foreign countries just because of turmoil by the court case."

Portugal prosecutors earlier this month had planned to charge the former minister Miguel Macedo on his role in the money laundering scandal related to golden visa scheme.

However, President Anibal Cavaco Silva must end the freeze publishing the decree.

Among the foreign investment received through golden visa program, Chinese lead the way followed by Brazilians and Russians.

By the end of June month, Portugal government had granted 2,420 golden visas for an investment worth 1.47 billion Euros.