In 2012, a total of 540 applications for temporary residency for managerial personnel, technical and professional qualification holders were received by the Macao Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM) (an increase of 50 compared with last year), 84 applications for major investment and major investment plans (an increase of 19 compared with last year), representing 86.54% and 13.46% of the total of 624 new applications in 2012. Approved cases for managerial personnel, technical and professional qualification holders amounted to 240 (a decrease of 172 compared with last year), approved applications for major investment and major investment plans totalled 8 (a decrease of 2 compared with last year). In accordance with the Administrative Regulation No. 7/2007, temporary residency applications for fixed asset purchases have been suspended since 4 April 2007. There were over 4,000 applications lodged before the closing date of the policy and are still being processed. Therefore, there were no new residency applications for fixed assets purchases in 2012 while all of the 22 already approved cases were lodged before 4 April 2007. Currently, there are still 8 remaining cases being processed as the identity and education qualifications need to be verified. Statistics of Temporary Residency Applications and the Cases and Number of People Approved in 2012