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"Larry Page submitted an application for residence under the
Investor Plus Category on 3 November 2020," Immigration New
Zealand said in an e-mailed statement on Saturday.
"As he was offshore at the time his application was not able to
be processed because of COVID-19 restrictions. Once Mr. Page
entered New Zealand his application was able to be processed and
it was approved on 4 February 2021."
The visa requires applicants to have NZ$10 million ($7 million)
to invest in New Zealand over a three-year period, according to
a statement on the immigration website.
New Zealand closed its borders to visitors at the start of the
pandemic, except for on-and-off travel bubble with Australia.
The country allows only a limited number of returnees, requiring
them to spend two weeks in a government-run quarantine facility.
Together with snap and strict lockdowns and high compliance with
public health rules, the closed borders have helped keep
COVID-19 out of the Pacific nation. There have been only 2,524
confirmed cases of the coronavirus so far.
When asked in the parliament earlier this week on what grounds
Page was allowed entry into the country while the borders were
closed, Health Minister Andrew Little said it followed a medical
emergency application for Page's son to be evacuated from Fiji
in early January.
"It met all the standard conditions of a medical emergency
requiring a medical evacuation from the Islands, and every
requirement and regulation that was in place in relation to
medevacs and in relation to COVID-19 was complied with," Little
said, according to a transcript on the parliament's website.
($1 = 1.4269 New Zealand dollars)
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
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