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Speaker 1: So foreign investment talk. Over the weekend Saturday, David Seymour

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Speaker 1: an act announced reform that will make it easier for

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Speaker 1: foreigners to buy local companies and properties than yesterday. New

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Speaker 1: Zealand first announced the Future Investment Fund idea that they

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Speaker 1: will take to the next election in twenty twenty six. Now,

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Speaker 1: the New Zealand Initiatives executive Director Oliver Hant, which with

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Speaker 1: us on all of this, oliber.

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Speaker 2: Morning to you, Good morning, MIKEE.

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Speaker 1: Seymour said over the weekend we're thirty eight out of

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Speaker 1: thirty eight with reputation. We sort of thumb our nose

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Speaker 1: to the world. Is he right?

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Speaker 2: Oh, he's absolutely right. And we've known this for many years.

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Speaker 2: New Zealand has always been one of the hardest places

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Speaker 2: for international investors to come and invest, and we've been

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Speaker 2: ranked in these rankings really at the bottom really for decades,

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Speaker 2: and that's why that part of globalization has always bypassed

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Speaker 2: New Zealand. Actually, the share of FDI in our GDPs

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Speaker 2: law than it used to be twenty five years ago,

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Speaker 2: whereas most other countries have advanced. Or David Seymour's absolutely

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Speaker 2: spot on.

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Speaker 1: What's our problem? Are we usenophobic?

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Speaker 2: Not necessarily zonophobic, but we just don't like foreign capital.

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Speaker 2: We just make it very too hard for in capital

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Speaker 2: to come to New Zealand and be deployed here. We

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Speaker 2: check them, we put them through a massive bureaucratic process,

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Speaker 2: and you know what, New Zealand is a nice to

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Speaker 2: have for these international investors. They look at or bureaucracy

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Speaker 2: and say, actually, is it really worth playing in New

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Speaker 2: Zealand or should we just go somewhere else? And then

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Speaker 2: they typically look at that and invest elsewhere.

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Speaker 1: Have we got two completely different things over the week

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Speaker 1: in one from Seymour, two from Peter's or are they

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Speaker 1: sorted the same thing?

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Speaker 2: Well, they are related. I mean the significance about Peter's investment,

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Speaker 2: especially in the context of Seymour's, is that New Zealand

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Speaker 2: First for a long time was one of the road

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Speaker 2: blocks to reforms. They didn't want to reform the obse's investment.

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Speaker 2: That Seymour now says we have cabinet approval, that means

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Speaker 2: New Zealand First is in and then just top it

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Speaker 2: up when St. Peter's announced that actually they would like

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Speaker 2: to go at one step further and even have a

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Speaker 2: future fund based on international investment. So that's a very

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Speaker 2: clear signal that New Zealand First has changed their minds

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Speaker 2: and so that can only be good news.

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Speaker 1: Can New Zealand First change their mind on that while

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Speaker 1: still blocking foreigners buying houses.

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Speaker 2: Actually none of the investments are about houses. This is

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Speaker 2: really about business investment and both Winston Peters and David

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Speaker 2: Seymour have made it clear that they want to get

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Speaker 2: capital into the economy with the goal of making us

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Speaker 2: more productive. That's not about houses at the moment. It's

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Speaker 2: really about genuine business investment to lift our productivity here.

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Speaker 1: Well, if you're an equity fund, sure and hundreds of

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Speaker 1: millions of dollars, I get that. But what if you're

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Speaker 1: in a business investment man who wants to bring in

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Speaker 1: thirty forty million dollars into the country, and you like

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Speaker 1: New Zealand, you thin actually it wouldn't mind buying a

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Speaker 1: house and you can't.

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Speaker 2: That of course is an inconsistency, and actually we've said

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Speaker 2: that before the last selection when those plans were discussed.

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Speaker 2: I think actually we cannot do the two things together.

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Speaker 2: We should actually say we make it easy for you

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Speaker 2: to come and invest in a business. And by the

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Speaker 2: way of course, we also make it easy for you

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Speaker 2: to buy a house. I would even go a step further,

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Speaker 2: I would say, and then we make it easy for

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Speaker 2: you to get visa for your staff. And we actually

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Speaker 2: roll out the red carpet to make it all happen,

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Speaker 2: because it has to be a consistent package. If you

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Speaker 2: go to the most successful countries in the world when

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Speaker 2: it comes to foreign d liked investment, like Ireland, like Singapore,

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Speaker 2: that's exactly what they do with There are dedicated agencies

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Speaker 2: making it at easy as possible for these international investors

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Speaker 2: to come.

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Speaker 1: Always enjoy your company, Oliver Appreciate Oliver heartwhich had a

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Speaker 1: New Zealand initiative.

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Speaker 2: For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to

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Speaker 2: news talks. It'd be from six am weekdays, or follow

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