Australia Skilled Sponsored Visa - Family Sponsorship

The Australian Sponsored visa operates on a points-based system that focuses predominantly on the skills, qualifications and work experience of the Australian skilled migration applicant.

The total points requirement is open to change and is dependent on decisions made by the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA).

The current pass mark for a Skilled-Australian Sponsored visa for immigration to Australia is 100 points, This application is supported by a sponsor to ensure that the applicant meets the necessary points requirement.

Duration

These type of Australia visas entitle people emigrating to Australia to gain permanent residency status. After a two-year period, providing relevant criteria have been met, the visa holder may apply for Australian citizenship.

Eligibility Criteria

Age

An Australian visa application for Skilled Sponsored Migration must be lodged before the applicant reaches the age of 45 years.

Skills & Qualifications

The main applicant:

    * Must meet the qualifications and/or work experience requirements of the appropriate skills assessing body for their profession and must have been assessed as suitable by the relevant body for the nominated occupation;
    * Must nominate a skilled occupation that appears on the most recent version of the Skilled Occupations List;
    * The candidate must have been in recent paid employment of at least 20 hours per week in any of the occupations on the Skilled Occupations List for 12 of the last 24 months.

Sponsorship

The visa applicant must:

    * Be related to a sponsor as a non-dependant child, a parent, a brother or sister, or a niece or nephew;
    * They should also be 18 years of age or over;
    * The nominated sponsor must be an Australian citizen, Australian permanent resident, or in certain cases New Zealand citizens may also act as the sponsor.

Assurance of Support

To migrate to Australia under this category, the applicant must have an assurer. The assurer must also meet several requirements, including having a certain income level.

 Health & Character

There are strict health and character requirements that must be met before any permanent Australian visa of more than 12 months will be granted. Those people attempting to migrate will be required to:

    * Undergo a medical examination and chest x-ray undertaken by one of a panel of doctors selected by the Australian authorities, and;
    * Obtain police certificates for all countries in which they have lived for more than 1year in the 10 years leading up to the application.

Processing Times

The current processing time for the Skilled Sponsored migration visa is about 1 year 03 months from the start of the process.

UK Government Announce New 'Entrepreneur Visa.

UK Government is expected to announce a new "entrepreneur visa" aimed at attracting investor-backed businessmen who wish to immigrate to the UK to start high-tech companies. The goal is to better position London as a hot-bed for startups; The UK Government hopes that East London will become the "Silicon Valley" of the UK.

The United States, particularly the San Francisco Bay area, is known for its leading position in encouraging high-tech innovation, something the UK hopes to emulate. Europe in general is often seen as lagging behind America in encouraging entrepreneurship, particularly in the technology arena.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron is announced plans for the new entrepreneur visa on 4 November 2010, which if successful will transform part of East London into a High Tech Centre; Investors include companies such as Google, Intel, & Facebook.
Businessmen applying for an entrepreneur visa are expected to have significant backing from investors for their new business. How much investment will be required remains to be seen.

The new visa announcement comes at a time when the UK Border Agency has a cap on highly skilled immigration. Many would say that making it easier for people to come into the UK on a Tier 1 Visa or Tier 2 Visa would do much more to encourage innovation and investment in the UK than a new high-tech area in East London.

It also remains to be seen just how this new visa will be integrated into the UK's existing tiered immigration syststem.

Student Visa From China Declined In Australian Universities

Australian Universities noticed that the number students from China applying for student visas to study at Australian universities has been dramatically declined in the following summer. This could be due to changes in Australian skilled immigration policy.

A 40 percent of decline has been noticed of Chinese student visa, applying to Australian universities for the next summer session. Further Education and Technical Colleges have seen a decline of 80 percent in Chinese student visa applications.

The sharp decline in student applications could cause a crisis in Australia's education industry as Chinese students represent approximately $6 billion in revenue. Chinese students make up an estimated 27 percent of Australia's foreign student population.

The decline in Chinese students is blamed on current changes to Australian immigration law. The Australian government reduced 50 percent Skilled worker occupations on 01 July 2010, which are eligible under its popular General Skilled Migration programme.

The Australian skilled occupation list while much declined since 1 July 2010 has far more occupations on it than the Canadian occupation list. The Australian skilled occupation list has 181 occupations compared to 29 occupations under the Canadian Skilled worker programme.

Canada,United States and many other Countries are trying to attract international students as well. Australia needs to work hard to continue to attract students from China and around the World.

Education agents in Beijing have also said Australian universities had been greedy in putting their fees up every year, which has priced themselves out of the market particularly as they face increasing competition from US universities.