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Australia is one of the best countries for immigrants because of how it treats immigration. Many other countries treat immigration as a necessary evil and are not welcoming to people. Australia on the other hand, at every level, is always open for hardworking people. If you have good grades and qualifications then the chances of your immigration happening successfully are very high. All this happens because Australia understands something many other countries cannot; by choosing the right type of immigration, it can decrease the burden of everyone in the society. Continuing on the path to attract the world’s best and brightest, the Australian government has announced that it will be launching a whole new class of visa in November 2016.
Business visas have been the norm for a long time, and at first glance, it might seem like an entrepreneur visa is redundant but there is one big distinction between the two. Basically, in order to qualify for a business visa, you need to have the resources already for doing business in Australia. This means that you need to be an established businessman, you should have the funds that will be required to set up a business in Australia, and you must have a business plan.
This qualifies a person as an investor and makes the immigration process much easier. However, in a world where angel investors are increasingly becoming the norm, this model no longer works. With so many companies innovating through outside funding, it is very limiting to only allow entrepreneurs who have the money themselves into the country.
This is where the entrepreneur visa comes handy. The visa is aimed to bring in people who want to set up a business in Australia with the help of third party funding. What this means is that if an immigrant has a great business idea and they want to establish it in Australia, they will no longer need to show that they have enough money themselves to fund the business idea. What is important is that there must be a party agreeing to fund the venture of the entrepreneur.
It is easy to see why this could be very helpful. It opens up Australia for people who have innovative ideas that are backed by proper funding. This could cause a boom in the tech industry as the tech industry often has entrepreneurs with limited funds but great ideas. The visa has not been finalised yet; it was announced in the National Innovation and Science Agenda and should be launched by November. Australia will hardly be the first country to launch an entrepreneur visa but the focus on innovation is completely new.
Australia itself has entrepreneur visas under the Business Innovation and Investment Programme. The visas are Business Innovation and Investment (Permanent) visa (subclass 888), Business Talent (Permanent) visa (subclass 132), and Business Innovation and Investment (Provisional) visa (subclass 188). These are very rare visas and are only given to people who are nominated by a state or territory to come to Australia. The government is still taking feedback on entrepreneur visas, so if you want to be a part of the conversation you can visit http://www.border.gov.au/about/reports-publications/discussion-papers-submissions/entrepreneur-visa