New Zealand Government to Place More Restrictions on Foreign Ownership of Large Farms
September 29th, 2010I’m actually amazed by this. I didn’t think anything came “too close to home” for the New Zealand government when it came to China. I fully expected the acquisition of the Crafer farms by China Jin Hui Mining Corporation (later changed to “Natural Dairy” for perception management purposes) to sail through without any problems.
Thankfully, somebody wasn’t asleep at the switch on this one. Although, I’d expect back room arm twisting to commence forthwith.
Via: Guardian:
New Zealand plans to tighten controls on foreign land purchases amid fears that the Chinese acquisition of local farms may not be in the country’s strategic interests.
The new rules were announced today after a fierce public backlash against a Hong Kong-listed firm that attempted to buy New Zealand’s biggest private dairy farm.
Natural Dairy – previously known as the China Jin Hui Mining Corporation – offered to pay NZ$1.5bn for farmland, cattle and milk powder production plants, according to the domestic media.
This bid for the Crafer family’s farms – now under review – has stirred up considerable concern in a country that depends on the dairy industry for almost a quarter of its export earnings.
New Zealand’s farmers warn that state-backed Chinese investors are taking advantage of the economic downturn to buy land cheaply, so that they are in a strong position for a sharp rise in global population and demand for food. China already feeds a fifth of the world’s population on less than a tenth of the planet’s arable land.
The Federated Farmers of New Zealand say planned Chinese purchases of arable land are unfair because foreign firms are forbidden from acquiring similarly large swathes of farmland in China.
Under the new rules, the government will introduce extra tests on overseas investment applications for “sensitive land”. The buy-ups will have to be judged in relation to the nation’s economic interests before approval.
More: Investment Rules Full of Holes
“Thankfully, somebody wasn’t asleep at the switch on this one.”
“asleep” is not really the right characterisation, imo. there were always a lot of political calculations going on with regard to this greasy little deal. the Key bovvah boys and girls seem to do whatever they please, if they think it plays to their “base” of wealthy backers, but Key himself seems to get nervous when he perceives a strong backlash from “middle NZ”. this looks to be just such an example. he was obviously getting a bit of flack at those regional party conferences about selling the county off to the Chinese govt’s proxies.
at any rate, i don’t know if the Crafer Farms-Natural Dairy deal is buried at all, yet. this smells of distracting the crowd while the deal sails through unnoticed (hopefully)…