Changes to Foreign Investment Criteria Threshhold For OIC Consent Raised From $10m To $50m The August 1999 Joint Communique on Australia - New Zealand Economic Relations included the following: "For its part, New Zealand will raise the threshold at which consent for non-land foreign investment is required from NZ$10 million to NZ$50 million, on a multilateral basis. The criteria for land-related foreign investment will remain unchanged" (4/8/99). They probably are not doing it for land because it would require a law change. No date has been set, as yet, for when this comes into effect. This will reduce the work of the Overseas Investment Commission and has huge implications for public awareness of the amount of foreign investment in New Zealand. When Bill Rowling created the Commission, during the 1972-75 Labour government, consent for non-land foreign investment was set at $500,000. Muldoon increased it to $2 million; David Caygill to $10 million. Now it's jumped again - to $50 million! It also means less work for Bill Rosenberg, and maybe even smaller Watchdogs. Bill has announced his intention of writing up OIC highlights only (not all decisions), from sometime in 2000. Probably the small land purchases will be the ones left out. This criteria change will also remove some of the corporate takeovers from the OIC's records and hence from CAFCA's. There won't be any less foreign investment; just less that we and you will know about. Foreign Control Watchdog, P O Box 2258, Christchurch, New Zealand/Aotearoa. December 1999. Email |
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