Berlin, July 09: Germany will extend for about 18 months a system of "Green Card" visas for high-tech experts from outside the European Union, economy and labour minister Wolfgang Clement announced today. The programme, which employed mainly foreign computer specialists from India, was due to end on July 31, but Clement said a new system envisaged for next year had been delayed so Green Cards would still be issued until December 31, 2004.
"More than two jobs can be created, and have been created for each information technology specialist employed," government spokesman Bela Anda said of the scheme at a press conference.
The Green Cards, named after a similar scheme in the United States, were launched on August 1, 2000 after a heated political debate on immigration, domestic unemployment and better training for German citizens.
The programme foresaw the distribution of 20,000 work and residency permits for five years to non-European Union citizens in an effort to import technological "know-how" into Germany.
A little over a year later, more than 10,000 cards had been issued, exhausting the first tranche. Many of the successful applicants were computer experts from India and the former Soviet Union.
The rate slowed markedly in following years and by the end of June 2003 a total of just over 14,560 had been allocated.
The German association for information technology, Bitkom, in a statement, welcomed the decision to extend the programme as a timely decision.
Bureau Report