Jose count only so much). According to one EB-5 industry leader
in Vietnam, “EB-5 is not suitable for those who look for lifechanging opportunity. Many Vietnamese people misunderstand
the program as an opportunity to come to America and become
wealthy through investment. In fact, the main purpose of the
program is to help fund projects and create jobs instead of making
investors rich.”13
Effects of Upcoming Legislative Reforms on the
Current EB-5 Market in Vietnam
Vietnamese investors struggle to prove the lawful source of
their EB-5 investment funds, probably even more so than EB-5
investors from China. If new legislation for the EB-5 Regional
Center Program increases the minimum investment amount, this
difficulty would increase. There are many wealthy Vietnamese
who may be interested in EB-5, but who might not be qualified
due to the lack of evidence regarding source of funds.
Nevertheless, the EB-5 program is predicted to grow rapidly in
the next few years. With the U.S. Department of State developing
a more positive and realistic attitude in issuing visitor visas to
Vietnamese nationals, potential investors can now more easily
travel to the United States. to perform their own project due
diligence. Visiting gives them an opportunity to learn about the
projects, the country, and be more confident in moving forward
with an EB-5 investment.
Brandon Meyer is an EB-5 immigration attorney
and principal of the Meyer Law Group, a full
service immigration law firm with offices in
Solana Beach, Calif. and Stamford, Conn. Meyer
routinely works on cases involving EB-5 and regional center representation, among other areas
of immigration law. He visits Vietnam frequently
and has built a strong EB-5
practice there.
Brandon Meyer
According to “Raw I-526 Dat a” compiled by the Association to Invest in
the USA, USCIS approved the following number of I-526 petitions filed
by Chinese investors: 1) 2011-921; 2) 2012- 2873; and, 3) 2013- 3,147.
Comparable numbers for Vietnam for the years 2011-2013 were 12, 24,
and 23 by comparison, not truly presaging the surge to come. See http://
member.iiusa.org/resources/by/person/208575176?access=371, last accessed October 27, 2015.
1
See Halper, Stefan, The Beijing Consensus: Legitimizing Authoritarianism in Our Time: Basic Books, 2012 and Bell, Daniel A., The China
Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy: Princeton
University Press, 2015.
2
See David Shambaugh, “The Coming Chinese Crackup,” Wall Street
Journal, March 6, 2015. See http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-comingchinese-crack-up-1425659198, last accessed November 1, 2015. Dr.
Shambaugh, who I studied under at George Washington University, predicts the beginning of the end for the Chinese Communist Party, and also
notes that China’s economic elite is fleeing for the exits, which explains
why EB-5 is so heavily dominated by investors from China.
3
See Gabriel Wildau and Chris Giles “Beijing furthers efforts to halt slowdown” Financial Times, October 24-25, 2015, p.1 and Keira Lu Huang
“China’s growth target never set in stone: premier” South China Morning
Post, October 26, 2015, p.1
4
During his October 2015 presentation at an IIUSA conference, State
Department visa office official Charles Oppenheim presented data showing that Vietnamese citizens were issued 280 EB-5 visas for the period
dating October 2014-September 2015 (the period of the US government’s
2015 fiscal year), a number over 200 percent higher than the third-highest
producing EB-5 investor country of Taiwan (139 EB-5 visas issued for
the same period). See http://member.iiusa.org/system/files/attachments/
EB-5%20Visa%20Demand%20-%20An%20Update%20from%20
the%20Department%20of%20State.pdf, last accessed November 1, 2015.
5
Conclusion
As I drove into Hanoi from the airport in March 2011, I
was struck by the similarities with Beijing during my first visit
there in August 1994. The road to Beijing was lightly traveled,
and agricultural/unimproved land lined both sides of the road.
The trip to the center of town was long. In August 1994,
the well-known EB-5 landmarks of the Lufthansa Center/
Kempinski Hotel were the outer limits of Beijing. Now, this area
is essentially mid-Beijing. The old farm and wasteland has now
been replaced with high-rise apartments, office buildings and
hotels (and a golf course).
The reason for making this comparison is to point out that
Vietnam feels much like China did 15-20 years ago. I imagine
that the EB-5 business in China 15-20 years ago was the same as
Vietnam’s is today: blossoming interest in the program, coupled
with a relative lack of understanding how the program works,
with only a few brokers trying to organize the marketplace. I
predict that the EB-5 market in Vietnam will follow roughly the
same development trajectory as the EB-5 marketplace developed
in China, in the same way that Vietnam will follow China’s overall
economic development trajectory. While it might be unrealistic
to expect Vietnam to eventually become 80 percent of the EB-5
market, as China represents, it is not unrealistic for Vietnam to
eventually settle somewhere between five to ten percent of the
EB-5 market. For any regional center interested in diversifying its
distribution channels, Vietnam is a market than can no longer be
overlooked.
★
See Laurie Burkitt, “China’s Leaders Scrap One-Child Policy,” The
Wall Street Journal, October 30, 2015, p. A7. According to Ms. Burkitt,
“China will abandon its one-child policy, perhaps the most notorious
of the Communist Party’s intrusions into Chinese lives, amid a looming
demographic crunch that threatens the long-term health of the world’s
second-largest economy.”
6
See https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/
rankorder/2004rank.html, last accessed October 27, 2015. On a purchasing power parity (PPP) basis, China has a Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
of $12,900 in 2014, which ranks China 113 out of 230 nations, just
behind Macedonia, but just ahead of the Dominican Republic.
7
8
Discussions with anonymous EB-5 marketing specialist in Vietnam.
See “Long-Term Demographic Trends: Reshaping the Geopolitical
Landscape,” p.47. https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/
Demo_Trends_For_Web.pdf, last accessed October 27, 2015.
9
Chinese invasion of Vietnam has occurred numerous times in the last
2,000 years, with tensions persisting between the two countries today. See
http://asiasociety.org/vietnam-0, last accessed November 1, 2015.
10
See Jane Perlez, “Shadow of Brutal ’79 War Darkens Vietnam’s View of
China Relations,” The New York Times, July 6, 2014, p. A4.
11
ICEF Monitor. (2015, September 07). Challenges in Vietnamese higher
education contributing to demand for study abroad. Retrieved from
http://monitor.icef.com/2015/09/challenges-in-vietnamese-higher-education-contributing-to-demand-for-study-abroad/, last accessed September
15, 2015.
12
Thu Ngan. (2014, August 6). Nhieu dai gia Viet quan tam dau tu dinh
cu My. See http://kinhdoanh.vnexpress.net/tin-tuc/doanh-nghiep/nhieudai-gia-viet-quan-tam-dau-tu-dinh-cu-my-3026544.html, last accessed
September 15, 2015.
13
WWW.EB5INVESTORS.COM
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