US Economy Looking Good for EB5 Visa Investors

[Source: WhichEB5]

If you are presently thinking about making a permanent move to the USA through the EB5 visa, but have some concerns about your timing, in connection with the performance of the US economy, a recent report from Wells Fargo will be of interest to you.

The report, backed up by a lot of impressive evidence, indicates strong future prospects for the USA and considers five particularly important areas, profitability, innovation, resources, stability and people to draw a very positive conclusion.

The US is the leading country in research and development in eight out of ten technology areas including:-

• Agriculture and food production
• Aerospace, rail and non-auto transportation
• Military aerospace, defense and security
• Composite, nanotech and other advanced materials
• Energy generation and efficiency
• Healthcare, medical, life science and biotech.
• Information and communications|
• Instruments and non ICT electronics

Read article in full: US Economy Looking Good for EB5 Visa Investors 

CONTACT US EMPIRE STATE EB5 REGIONAL CENTER TODAY!

1160F Pittsford Victor Rd.

Pittsford, New York 14534

Tel: (866) 763-6515
EMAIL HERE or WEBSITE HERE

Making Permanent EB-5 Program and Improvements to EB-5 Job Counting Method

 In his plan to making the EB-5 pilot program permanent Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.is proposing a list of improvements focused on stronger staffing, streamlining the review process for applications and business plans, better reporting, and defining the what full time employment as it pertains to the EB-5 job requirements.   Full-time employment is currently defined as 35 total hours a week, per year, per employee (approximately 1,750 hours per year). Sen. Leahy’s proposal would count 1,750 hours worked as a full-time position towards the EB-5 job requirement regardless if the work is done by a single person or multiple individuals.An EB-5 investors investment must create 10 permanent full time jobs for American workers in order to qualify for a Untied States Green Card.
Read further:Senator Leahy’s Amendment Sectional  

EB 5 Visa Costs More Depending on your Currency

[Source: Stephen Parnell, WhichEB5.com]  

Will your EB 5 visa cost rise based solely on your currency?

If you have decided that the EB 5 visa provides your best opportunity for obtaining permanent residency status for you and your family you may wish to act sooner than later, depending on which country you and your funds are now in.

The US dollar has strengthened against a number of currencies. A number of economic and currency analysts believe it will rise further against certain currencies over the next few months.

The immediate reason behind this strengthening of the dollar is the signals from The US Federal Reserve that its purchases of bonds with newly created money may begin to tail off, possibly as early as September.

Just the possibility of quantitative easing has had the effect of pushing up long-term interest rates. In turn the increase in yields on US treasury bonds attracts capital from riskier parts of the world pushing up the value of the US dollar.

Along with this impact, the increasingly positive stories about the US economy all add to the attraction of the dollar; particularly when compared to the economic bad news stories about other parts of the world.

Complete article here:EB5 Visa Cost More Depending...

China's economy slows for second straight quarter, testing reforms

[Source: NBCNews]

China's economic growth in the second quarter of the year may not have slowed as much as some had feared, but a large degree of uncertainty about the outlook for the world's second biggest economy remains, strategists say.

Data on Monday showed the Chinese economy grew 7.5 percent year on year in the June quarter, in line with expectations, but down from 7.7 percent in first three months of the year to mark the second straight quarter of slowing growth.

"Who knows if 7.5 percent [growth] is sustainable? It really is a question of watching the data and where it stabilizes is what's important for the market," Simon Warner, head of macro markets at AMP Capital, told CNBC Asia's "Cash Flow."

"We have a real situation in China where nobody really knows where Chinese growth is going to settle down in the coming quarters," he added.

The China gross domestic product (GDP) data bought some relief to markets, which had braced for a weaker-than-forecast number after recent data sparked fears of a sharp slowdown in growth.

Asian stock markets were a touch firmer after the GDP release, while the China-data sensitive Australian dollar hit a session high of about $0.9109

Entire Article here: China's economy slows

More Chinese immigrants move to developed economies

[By Fu Jing in Brussels ( chinadaily.com.cn)]

The number of Chinese immigrants to developed economies has picked up slightly from 2009, and made China the "leading country of origin" according to a report published on Thursday in Brussels.

But given its 1.4 billion population, the rate is far lower than most other countries in the world. And its ability and insight into attracting expertise has won warm appreciation from the OECD chief.

As the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development released the International Migration Outlook 2013, the organization's secretary- general Angel Gurria praised China for implementing "very smart" measures to attract expertise. 

China's immigration into OECD countries reached 529,000 in 2011.

In 2009 the number declined to 460,000 from 518,000 in 2007. 

Based on 2011 figures, major immigration countries following China are Romania, Poland, India, Mexico, Philippines, United States, Germany, Morocco and the UK, each of which all has immigration of above 100,000.

See complete report: Slight rise in Chinese immigrants to developed economies

China Mainland to top Japan in millionaire stakes

(Source: China Daily, by Michael Barris)  

The Chinese mainland is poised to overtake Japan this year as the economy with the world's second-largest number of dollar millionaire households, behind the United States. 

And the Asia-Pacific region will surpass North America in four years as the world's wealthiest region, according to a report by the Boston Consulting Group. 

In its annual study of the world's wealth management industry, the global management consulting firm said worldwide wealth grew faster last year than in the previous two years. 

But it predicts that revenue growth and profits at wealth management firms will fall over the next five years, as the faster creation of wealth in Asia-Pacific and other developing regions poses challenges that will rob firms of the momentum they started to gain in 2012. 

BCG calculates millionaires by their investable assets excluding a primary residence or business. In 2012, the US had the most millionaire households, with 5.9 million, followed by Japan with 1.5 million and the Chinese mainland with 1.3 million. 

Complete report of China Mainland to top Japan in millionaire stakes

China's billionaires on rise

[Source: WANG ZHUOQIONG - China Daily]

China has had more billionaires created by its stock markets this year than in the United States - 212 compared with 211 - a new survey revealed on Thursday.

According to the latest Hurun Global Rich List 2013, there were 1,453 people in the world with personal wealth of $1 billion or more at the end of January.

Another significant sign of more wealth being created in the East came with figures showing Asia was home to the highest number of billionaires, with 608, followed by 440 from North America and 324 from Europe, said Hurun researchers.

Among individual countries, the US and the Greater China area dominated with 408 and 357 respectively, followed by Russia, Germany and India. 

Between them, the US and China now have half of all billionaires on the planet.
Moscow, with 76 billionaires, is the billionaire capital of the world, followed by New York, Hong Kong, Beijing and London, according to the report. 

More on the Chinese billionaires article HERE

Bonacic Wants Legislative Control Over The State's Casino Locations

More positive news coming out of Albany, New York pertaining to the locations of where the State's Casino's will be located. This is great news for the Rock Hill Town Center project that is sponsored by RH Land and Rock Hill Regional Center (Empire State EB-5). With the bolstering of economic growth in the Upstate New York region, especially with the casinos in mind, this area will be in need of hospitality and commercial real estate which the Rock Hill Town Center will have to offer.


[Source: Albany Watch written by Joseph Spector]

Bonacic said he would ideally like to see three casinos in the Catskills and one at the Aqueduct racino, which produced record revenues last month.The Catskills in 2001 was authorized to have three Indian casinos, but has never been built.

http://statepolitics.lohudblogs.com/2013/01/25/bonacic-wants-legislative-control-over-the-states-casino-locations/

  To learn about the exciting investment opportunity for Rock Hill Town Center:

Tel: (866) 763-6515 

or

 EMAIL 

USCIS EB-5 to move from California to Washington DC

[SOURCE: Suzanne (www.lucidtext.com) 2/3/2013]

USCIS Director Mayorkas sent an email last July announcing that USCIS would create a new office to oversee administration of the EB-5 program, and he discussed the proposal with stakeholders in December. I didn’t comment much at the time because the talk sounded preliminary and I didn’t expect to see action any time soon. But there has been action, as well as more talk, and I’m taking the plan seriously. Here are notes on what I know so far about the proposal. The details come from the 07/18/2012 Public Engagement email, the 12/03/2012 Conversation with the Director, and the 01/15/2013 National Stakeholder Engagement.

• USCIS proposes a “realignment of responsibilities” for administration of the EB-5 Immigrant Investor program to a new EB-5 Program Office to be located in Washington DC.

• Once operational, the office will deal with I-924 applications and I-526 and I-829 petitions. Only the I-485 will be handled elsewhere.

• The agency intends to accomplish the realignment very swiftly, with the goal to have the new EB-5 program office up and running and evaluating cases by June 2013. Applicants and petitioners will continue to work with the California Service Center until the shift occurs.

• The new office will be led by a new Chief of Immigrant Investor Programs. The program chief will have significant experience in the business world and will assume responsibility for ensuring that the program is administered efficiently, with integrity, with predictability, and with an understanding of today’s business realities. The chief of new EB-5 program office will report directly to Deputy Director of the agency. Robert Cox of the USCIS Office of Chief Counsel has been named as acting chief of the immigrant investor program during the bridge period.

• The new EB-5 program office will be staffed with personnel with economic, business, and legal expertise and experience. This includes the adjudicators themselves as well as policy personnel.

• The staff will include dedicated staff drawn from other components within agency, including full-time public engagement resources, legislative affairs resources, and personnel from fraud protection and national security.

• It hasn’t been decided yet whether there will be there be specialized adjudicators, counterparts to “the economist,” the “lawyer,” the “business specialist” and so on. Director Mayorkas likes the idea of a team specializing in project-eligibility and another team specializing in client eligibility. The question is how precisely to divide the specializations, and which areas of the adjudication process would most benefit from dedicated specialists. (The EB-5 team at the CSC currently has over 50 dedicated staff, including 40 service officers and supervisors, eight economists, and two securities attorneys.)

• The new program office will incorporate channels of direct communication with the review board team. Email is expected to be the primary channel. The hope is “to divorce ourselves from the static institutional model of communication” between adjudicators and applicants and to achieve a greater fluidity of communication.

• Director Mayorkas has in mind a goal of reaching 90-120 day processing times, including for I-924 applications.

The Ombudsman’s office is holding an engagement on March 5th that will discuss the “new EB-5 adjudication unit in Washington, D.C.” among other matters. Stakeholders are invited to submit written comments by February 15th.

With comprehensive immigration reform on the table, the EB-5 program may be up for changes even beyond the realignment of responsibilities to Washington DC. See: President Obama Addresses the EB-5 Regional Center Program Legislative Update: Prospects for Immigration, and EB-5 Program, Reform

NYSERDA: Give your Balance Sheet a BOOST by saving Energy

There really is no downside to participating in the NYSERDA New Construction Program, just an opportunity to leverage funds in an overwhelmingly positive cost/beneficial manner. As part of the reorganizing effort in New York State, all NYSERDA New Construction Program applications, as well as funding for a wide range of other development projects, are now routed through the New York Regional Economic Development Councils (http://nyworks.ny.gov /). Through capital incentives and technical assistance, the NYSERDA New Construction Program helps design teams and building owners to incorporate energy-efficiency measures into the design, construction, and operation of new and substantially renovated buildings.  

For additional background information, visit the NYSERDA website at http://www.nyserda.ny.gov/en/About.aspx.  

Please also feel free to contact Jim Bittker at jbittker@spc-ny.com and/or 585.943.7604.