Cash-strapped After running out of dollars to pay for food and fuel, Sri Lanka announced Tuesday that it would sell long-term visas to raise much-needed foreign money.

Under the “Golden Paradise Visa Program,” foreigners who invest a minimum of $100,000 locally will be granted permission to live and work in Sri Lanka for ten years.

According to the government, the money should be kept in a local bank account for the duration of the stay.

“This scheme will help Sri Lanka at a time when we are facing the worst financial crisis since our independence,” media minister Nalaka Godahewa told reporters in Colombo.

Foreigners who spend at least $75,000 on an apartment on the island will be granted five-year visas, according to the administration.

Thousands of people camped outside President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s oceanfront office to demand his resignation as a result of acute shortages of food, gasoline, and medicines.

The administration has expressed an interest in considering constitutional revisions that would limit the president’s power to nominate and dismiss ministers, judges, and public workers following his election in 2019.

His government also reversed democratic changes that gave the police, civil service, election commission, and judiciary legislative independence.

After the coronavirus pandemic decimated essential tourism and remittance money, Sri Lanka’s economic collapse became apparent.

Enormous daily blackouts have been imposed by utilities unable to pay for fuel imports, while long lines snake around service stations as residents queue for petrol and kerosene.

Hospitals are running out of life-saving drugs, the government has begged for donations from residents around the world, and record inflation has added to ordinary suffering.

Sri Lankan officials arrived in Washington last week to talk to the International Monetary Fund for a bailout.