Today, I am very honored to represent the Paphos Municipal Council at this event. I would like to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt gratitude to the Worldway Group, and especially to Dr. Xing, for their kind invitation.
In today's world, communication and understanding between citizens who share common interests and pursuits increasingly influence cooperation between different countries and nations. Even with different national and cultural backgrounds, citizens can unite to pursue a better vision for humanity and promote peace, friendship, and selfless cooperation. Tonight's grand event provides an excellent opportunity to establish and strengthen communication between citizens at this level.
As the "European Capital of Culture" for 2017, Paphos enjoys a long history of 2,300 years. It is a host city for major cultural events and possesses comprehensive tourism facilities. Therefore, we believe that Paphos holds an irresistible charm for continuing and strengthening the historical friendship between Cyprus and China. Cyprus is a small European country that, due to the impact of the global economic crisis, is now gradually emerging from difficulties and restoring steady development and progress, which is extremely important to us. Today's gathering is a mutually beneficial event that provides us with an opportunity to further develop relations and cooperation with the Chinese people. The Chinese nation has always been a friendly nation, proactive and having achieved rapid development in many aspects.
Here, on behalf of the Paphos government, I would like to share with you that the Paphos government has made further strengthening relations with China and the Chinese people an important work objective. This work is very important to us. The main reason is that in the past few years, Paphos has welcomed a large number of Chinese citizens who have chosen to settle in our city, and some have already become our citizens. It is also for this reason that the Paphos Municipal Government has established close and fruitful cooperation with the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Cyprus. We have jointly organized a series of activities aimed at better understanding and strengthening the friendship between local residents and our new citizens. For example, 10 days ago, we held a large-scale cultural event at the Paphos Municipal Theater, during which we invited the Wuxi Performing Arts Group's Song and Dance Academy, with hundreds of Cypriot and Chinese residents in attendance.
At the same time, I would like to share with you a few reasons why you might choose to invest and immigrate to Cyprus. Under the global economic situation, all multinational enterprises are facing the need to reduce costs and improve quality to meet higher customer expectations. Cyprus also has its own unique and comprehensive value proposition:
First, Cyprus joined the 27 EU member states in May 2004. It is the eastern gateway to Europe; Europe, Africa, and Asia meet here, making it a gateway to these three continents. At the same time, Cyprus is one of the EU countries with a more attractive tax and legal system, with its system based on English Common Law and following EU laws and regulations. In addition, the pleasant weather, beautiful natural and humanistic artistic environment, good public security, and the warm and hospitable local people all make Cyprus a place for people to live and work in peace and contentment. It can be said that Cyprus has successfully integrated intense WorldWay competition into a comfortable and harmonious life. Therefore, in the 2013 United Nations Development Programme Human Development Report, Cyprus ranked 31st out of 187 countries in terms of quality of life. In addition, in the autumn of 2013, the Knight Frank Wealth Report ranked many important and competitive European cities for "better lifestyle," and Cyprus stood out, ranking fifth.
In addition, the new discovery of world-class deep-water natural gas reserves in the Cyprus Exclusive Economic Zone has shocked the energy sector while also attracting widespread attention from potential investors around the world. With the energy development of surrounding countries, Cyprus is expected to become an important energy hub in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Finally, and equally importantly, on March 28, 2014, the Cyprus government announced amendments to legislation, enabling foreign investors to become citizens of Cyprus—and thus citizens of the EU—through naturalization with unprecedentedly low investment, and to obtain a Cyprus passport. In other words, non-EU citizens only need to purchase 2.5 million euros or 3 million euros worth of real estate to obtain Cyprus citizenship for their entire family. I believe that everyone here has already learned about this preferential policy from Worldway.
Worldway is a leading investment consulting service company and investment immigration service company. Since 2012, Worldway has established a strategic partnership with the Paphos Municipal Government and has helped hundreds of Chinese families successfully make investment decisions and obtain permanent residency in Cyprus. As a Paphos Municipal Councilor and Chairman of the Paphos Foreign Relations Committee, I would like to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt thanks to Worldway for their invitation to this event and for their outstanding contributions to Paphos and Cyprus. Thank you for introducing our beautiful country to the Chinese people. I am very happy to see that Worldway has chosen to establish its first European branch in Cyprus. I believe that in the future, Worldway will continue to provide more comprehensive services to investor clients.
Dear friends, as the 2017 "European Capital of Culture," Paphos looks forward to your arrival and looks forward to you joining us as new citizens to build a better future, a future built on friendship, cooperation, innovation, and fraternity.
Thank you all!
