I was featured in IMI Daily’s “Ten On The Weekend”, discussing the closure of Cyprus’s Citizenship Investment Program (CIP) and what I believe was a significant missed opportunity for the country.

The termination of the programme represents a significant loss not only for investors seeking European citizenship pathways, but also for the Cypriot economy, which had benefited from the foreign capital attracted by the programme.

The real disappointment, however, is that Cyprus had an opportunity to evolve beyond a predominantly real-estate-driven model. Investment funds could have provided a way to connect investment migration with the broader Cypriot economy, directing foreign capital into operating businesses and other productive investments rather than concentrating it in property.

When my colleagues and I developed our Saratoga Capital private equity strategy, the objective was precisely this: to connect investment migration with long-term investment in the real economy. A fund-based approach could allow investors to pursue their migration objectives while providing businesses with patient capital and encouraging greater diversification of foreign investment.

Cyprus was particularly well placed to develop such a model because of its established financial-services infrastructure and regulatory environment. Instead, the closure of the CIP removed an important opportunity to establish Cyprus as a leader in fund-focused investment migration.

This does not mean that real estate should disappear from investment migration. Property investment can create substantial local economic activity. But funds offer an additional mechanism through which foreign direct investment can reach a wider range of businesses and sectors.

Cyprus had the opportunity to become a European pioneer in this area. The closure of the programme was therefore, in my view, a great travesty - not simply because a citizenship programme ended, but because an opportunity to develop a more diversified and economically productive investment-migration model was lost.

The broader lesson is that investment migration should not be viewed simply as a mechanism for selling property or granting passports. Properly structured, it can become a means of attracting long-term capital into the real economy.

That opportunity remains relevant to other jurisdictions considering how investment migration programmes should evolve. Earlier discussion of Cyprus’s programme and its economic implications can also be found in Neither fair nor helpful” – Thoughts on Al Jazeera’s Investigation.