KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 19 ― With the ringgit at a 17-year low, Putrajaya is hoping to turn the currency slide into a positive thing by persuading foreign retirees with savings to make Malaysia their second home.
In a quest to make the most of the current foreign currency exchange, Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz has gone on a tour to promote the Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) visa that will allow foreigners above the age of 50 who have just RM100,000 in their fixed deposits to stay in the country for up to ten years.
“With this program there is a lot of money coming from overseas. The money is big. Each person I can say is bringing in one million Malaysian ringgit at least,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in an interview today.
However, the MM2H visa requires applicants to purchase a property that costs RM1 million at least; they will also have to get the approval of the Tourism Ministry before withdrawing from their fixed deposits.
Even taking that into account, the high cost of living in Australia is driving many of its pensioners to move out of the country. Among the popular retirement destinations are Malaysia and Thailand, ABC cited an Australian financial analyst saying.
“It is frightening. And the more you look into things the more frightening it becomes. We all know we are living into our eighties now, even our nineties.
“You really need do need in excess of A$1 million,” Chris Malkin from Australian based auditor Baumgartner Super was quoted saying in the same report.
However, only 700 of the 28,000 holders of the MM2H visa are Australians as many of them are afraid to lose their pension benefits and have to cough out a high upfront fee which makes retiring in Southeast Asia “potentially cheaper, but not necessarily cheaper”, Malkin added.
“For Australians to retire in Malaysia, they would need, grossed up, somewhere between A$800,000 and A$1 million.
“So I don't think it is as easy as people make out.”
The Tourism Ministry launched the MM2H programme to provide services for expatriates who wish to retire or invest in Malaysia, such as property sourcing, visa permit applications and even domestic worker applications.
Malaysia was recently listed as among the top five retirement destinations in the Annual Global Retirement Index for 2014 by retirement website International Living.
National news agency Bernama reported in January that Malaysia was ranked first among Asian retirement destinations and that the country was deemed to have high quality of life and low cost of living.
