BY NATASHA JEE and ALEXANDRA LORNA
KUCHING: The State Ministry of Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts (MTCP) is setting a key performance indicator (KPI) for Sarawak-Malaysia My Second Home (S-MM2H) applications to be approved by 90 days.
Its Deputy Minister Datuk Sebastian Ting said previously the approval process for the S-MM2H was not under the ministry and the processing time had taken more than three months.
“Previously, we received the documents and we passed them over to another department for them to do the interviews.
“Now, we have taken over (the process) after the Cabinet approved it, so the Minister Datuk Seri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah is the chairman of the committee overseeing the applications while I am the deputy chairman. We meet every month to look at the applications.
“Therefore, we hope to (achieve) a turnaround time of 90 days for the applications to be approved as our KPI,” he said after attending the 6th Malaysia Tourism Council (MTC) Gold Awards at Borneo Convention Centre Kuching (BCCK) on Saturday (Oct 22) night.
Ting said that people from various countries had applied for the S-MM2H.
“We have received about more than 500 applications, and about 281 applications have been approved from January until September this year.
Meanwhile, MTCP permanent secretary Datuk Hii Chang Kee said the top three countries from which applications were received for the S-MM2H were the United States (US), followed by the United Kingdom (UK) and Hong Kong.
“Singapore ranked fourth in the S-MM2H applications. It used to be just single-digit from them in 2019.
“But this year there are already over 30 of them applying, so I think S-MM2H will be gaining popularity for Sarawak because our criteria is very low,” he said.
He explained that the S-MM2H criteria, among others, states that it is for those aged 50 and above, they are only required to put fixed deposits in local banks from RM150,000 and must have a minimum stay period of 30 days in a year.
“While those who are between 40 to 50 years old, there are additional criteria where they must purchase property such as residential houses for a total amount of over RM600,000 and have some income or savings of about RM50,000 for five years,” said Hii.
