Economic citizenship is "off the table" for the foreseeable future, according to Minister of Immigration and Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell.

Speaking on the Guardian Radio talk show "Q & A" with Quincy Parker and Adrian Francis earlier this week, Mitchell said that while the government had looked at the U.S.' EB-5 visa, which provides foreign nationals with a method of obtaining a green card by investing $1 million and creating 10 jobs, it had concluded that The Bahamas' current routes to citizenship are sufficient.

"Economic citizenship is off the table for The Bahamas. I know it's been floated by many people... but the best sense I can get is that it's a non-starter for this country. The best we can offer at the moment is permanent residence with the right to work," said Mitchell.

Under The Bahamas' current immigration policies, foreigners can apply for permanent residence without the right to work after a $500,000 investment in a home or business. Those investing $1.5 million may apply for residence with the right to work with a turnaround of about three weeks. Current laws require that applicants for citizenship remain in the country for at least seven years.

"Those are the best parts of the economic package that we can offer at this time and I don't see that those will change substantially," Mitchell stated.

Although Mitchell touched on the successes St. Kitts and Dominica had experienced through their economic citizenship programs, he doubted whether similar programs would yield comparable results for the Bahamian economy, given the larger scale of The Bahamas' economy.

Portugal notably introduced a similar 'golden visa' program, in which non-EU citizens investing EUR500,000 in real estate were granted a temporary residency permit enabling investors to travel freely within Europe. As of February, the program had attracted EUR1.27 billion of investment in only two years.

However, Portugal tightened the rules behind the program earlier this year after corruption investigations led to the resignations of a minister and several arrests.

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