IM Yearbook 2020/21

When the news broke about covid-19,
you quickly realised this pandemic
would jeopardise the Investment
Migration Forum. How did you stay in
touch with the industry during this
challenging and uncertain time and
are you planning a Forum for 2021?
In March 2020, when the pandemic
brought travel to a standstill, we quickly
transformed the way we communicated
and launched the IMC Streaming Service
‘Crossing Borders’ on YouTube. To date,
we’ve hosted close to 70 Crossing Borders
programmes, which have welcomed more
than 200 speakers and attracted some
2,700 delegates from 60+ countries. The
programme has been quite successful and
is now a permanent fixture in our events
calendar with a monthly broadcast. All
of the previous broadcasts are available
free to view on our YouTube channel.
Nonetheless, we feel the need of
the industry to meet face to face again
and are planning to host the Investment
Migration Forum between the 14th and
17th June 2021 in Brussels, Belgium. We
are excited to bring the Forum to Brussels
for the first time. We had wonderful four
years in Geneva, Switzerland, but a lot
of our regular attendees expressed the
wish to discover another European city.
Given the increasing amount of time that
we spend in Brussels nowadays, Brussels
was a natural choice. Besides, we are
hoping to increase the participation of
European policymakers by bringing this
high-calibre event to their doorstep, which
would allow them to fit the Forum in
their busy schedules. Without the need
to travel, it will offer them an opportunity
to learn more about the sector and meet
the people who are involved. As an
industry, we often get accused of being
secretive and not very transparent. This
was perhaps true in the past, but the sector
has changed and evolved a lot. We are
very welcoming and want to advance the
dialogue with European institutions.
We have
morphed a
little bit into a
think tank, at least on
the reporting side. In
the past, we focused
on the legal side of
what investment
migration is, now we
are emphasising the
economic value of
investment migration.
26
Investment Migration Yearbook 2O2O/2O21
IMC STREAMING
Keeping our community
together and informed
67
broadcasts
since March 2020
77
LIVE POLLS
TO DELEGATES
2,697
delegates
343
QUESTIONS ASKED
Q A
67
SURVEYS
WITH 69%
SURVEY RESPONSE RATE
85.5
HOURS OF
LIVE STREAMING
83%
interest rating
AVERAGE AVERAGE
76%
attentiveness rating
What new membership initiatives do
you have in the pipeline, and what
else can the industry expect from the
IMC in the coming 12 to 24 months?
Covid-19 has accelerated our digitalisation
programme. We had a 12-18 months
programme aimed at digitalizing many
of our services for our members. This
has now been fast-tracked, and we are
working on a new website, which is
focused on the user experience. Our
members will be able to manage their
profile, get in touch with the community
and the IMC, as well as accessing
information, facts and figures about the
sector in a much more user-friendly way.
We will also be launching IMC
Fellow membership, the highest level of
membership. It is open to any individual
who has been a professional member
of the IMC for 5 consecutive years and
has 10+ years of working experience
with 3 years at senior level. We are
planning to launch the IMC Fellow
membership at the same time as the
website towards the end of 2020.
The IMC’s Education and Training
division (IMCET) has also been busy
and will be launching two new bespoke
courses shortly. We are also restructuring
the Certification in Investment Migration
and are planning to offer students the
opportunity to choose individual modules
of this very successful course. These bitesized
learning options are great news
for both employees and employers
What final message would you
like to share with the investment
migration community?
Migration is always going to be a divisive
issue that will elicit a lot of discussion
and various viewpoints, no matter what
category of migrants it is. We need to
raise awareness about the contribution
that investor migrants make in their
communities. Often, their contributions
go well beyond the financial investment
that is required as part of an investment
migration programme. There are many
examples around the world, unfortunately,
the media often ignores those positives
as they are not newsworthy. Take, for
example, the late Thai entrepreneur
Mr Vichai Srivaddhanprabha. He was
predominantly famous for investing in
Leicester Football club – at least that
is what media focused on. However,
he was a lot more than that. He was
an investment migrant in the UK who,
throughout his stay in Leicester city, gave
away £2m in donations towards a new
children’s hospital, and a £1m gift to the
city’s university medical department. I
think as an industry, we have a unique
opportunity to address economic and
societal disparities and bring about
positive and impactful change – and
we need to recognise the importance of
effectively communicating how we are
creating value for all stakeholders.