Saturday August 02, 2008

Investors are turning their backs on New Zealand as a place to live and bring their money.

The number of approved investor migrants dropped from 1326 in 2002 to one this year, members of the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment heard yesterday.

National immigration spokesman Lockwood Smith, who spoke at the association's conference, told the Weekend Herald the active investor category would be the first thing to be revamped under National.

"We are missing out on investment dollars... changes to business migration is one of five key focuses of National's new immigration policy, which will be released soon."

Business NZ immigration adviser Nicholas Green says investors stopped coming after three policy changes in 2005.

The maximum age was lowered from 85 to 54, the minimum investment was doubled to $2 million and investors had to put their money in a Government infrastructural fund for five years.

"That effectively killed the flow. The Government undid some of those changes late last year, but they are obviously not having much impact."

The new policy, which took effect in November, kept the maximum age at 54 for investors bringing in the new minimum amount of $2.5 million, but raised the maximum age for those bringing in at least $10 million to 64 and abolished the age limit altogether for amounts above $20 million.

The requirement to invest with the Government was abolished.

Mr Green said it was hard to tell if the inflow was still low because investors had not yet heard about the changes, or whether they had been put off by other policies such as the decision to stop foreigners buying "strategic" assets such as Auckland Airport.

"We know that the Government's decisions on strategic assets have gone around the international investment community."

Association vice-chairman Kim Saull said the new requirements were "stupid and ridiculous".

"Who would want to come to New Zealand when the level of requirements for investor migrants to countries like the US, Australia and Canada are much lower?"

Korean immigration consultant Kenny Jeong, who put through15 applicants under the investorcategory in 2002, said he had struggled to get any interest from Korea since.

"The English language and amount makes it too hard. The Immigration Minister can't seem to understand that people do not see New Zealand as a place they will put $20 million. Many migrants see this country as a golf paradise and a good place to retire, not a place where they can do multimillion-dollar business."

Barfoot and Thompson commercial adviser Paul Gilberd said he had written to the minister, Clayton Cosgrove, suggesting changes but had not received a response.

"I have clients wanting to pump millions of dollars into New Zealand, but we have policies that are too vague and make it too hard for them to do that."

Institute members yesterday discussed campaigning for policy changes ahead of the election.

But Mr Cosgrove and the Department of Labour, which oversees immigration, said that changes were unlikely as the policy added value to the economy.

A Labour Department spokesman said policies should not be judged solely on the quantity of migrants because quality was also important - particularly in terms of economic contribution.

Mr Cosgrove said the Government had already received 23 expressions of interest under the new policy.

And the 12 applications received had the potential to bring up to $50.5 million in investments.

(Source NZ Herald, Lincoln Tan and Simon Collins)