Chinese nationals trailed only the British as the main investors in the real estate sector in Portugal last year, said the Commercial Counsellor’s Office of the Chinese Embassy in the European nation.

The office cited figures from the Portuguese Confederation of Construction and Real Estate (CPCI), which show that foreign investment in the Portuguese property market reached 26.3 billion euros (US$29.8 billion) in 2014.

Chinese investment in Portugal’s real estate was about 4.68 billion euros, or 17.8 percent of the total, “mainly driven by the golden visa scheme launched by the Portuguese Government,” said the office on its website.

Portugal introduced the golden visa scheme in 2012, which allows non-European investors that spend a minimum of 500,000 euros on a property to live in the country and travel in the Schengen area for five years, after which they can apply for permanent residency.

The top three individual investors in Portugal’s property market last year were French nationals, according to CPCI’s data.