The Kushner family has apologised for name-dropping White House adviser Jared Kushner at an investment conference in China, which had raised the issue of whether the family was using its connections to the White House to attract business, potentially crossing ethical lines.

Nicole Kushner Meyer mentioned her relationship to her brother, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, during a presentation in which she was urging Chinese citizens to invest in a New Jersey project being managed by the family’s real estate company.

“In 2008, my brother Jared Kushner joined the family company as CEO, and recently moved to Washington to join the administration,” she said at the conference.

In a statement to the Washington Post, Kushner Companies said it “apologises if that mention of her brother was in any way interpreted as an attempt to lure investors. That was not Ms Meyer’s intention”.

The company added that Mr Kushner had “stepped away from the company in January and has nothing to do with this project.”

Mr Trump last week extended the the EB-5 visa programme, which allows foreigners to win fast-track immigration in exchange for investing large sums of money in US projects.

The programme was set to expire in April, but the massive federal spending bill Mr Trump signed on Friday extends it until 30 September.

According to CNN, Kushner Companies said about 15 per cent of its New Jersey building – a $976.4 million residential and commercial project titled One Journal Square – will be funded through the EB-5 program.

Lawmakers, particularly Democrats, have criticised the programme, saying that it is basically a way of selling US citizenship to the uber-wealthy.