" Why are people concerned about selling assets to Chinese government companies in particular? Because it’s the new world empire and it’s going around the world buying up the natural resources that it needs to import to sustain their growing economy – vertical integration in management speak – which means that China will always have first call on these resources in a resource-constrained future.
In Australia, it’s trying to buy the coal mines. In the Sudan, it’s buying the oil reserves. In the islands, it’s picking up fishing rights having bought the governments. In New Zealand, our asset is our farmland and the Chinese government is quite open about the intention to buy as much as it can. The companies making these purchases are either directly government owned or heavily government-backed."
Eddie at The Standard makes a good case for caution.
Monday, August 8, 2011
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4 comments:
The Chinese are not silly. Caution does not necessarily mean NO. So lets look outside the square for a bit.
Our Govt could totally ban land sales to overseas interests. Or the sales could be taxed in any number of ways.
The method I like best would be based on the Shetland Model. The large oil companies wanted to set up an oil facility on the Island. The local council were divided and unable to make a decision. The chairman, a wily Scot by the name of John Campbell suggested they charge a penny a barrel for every barrel that came ashore. The oil companies thought this was nothing - but at 30,000 barrels every day, 365 days a year the Shetland Islands had money to fund all sorts of community projects.
With a little imagination a similar model could provide long term income for NZ
That's a good model Fred - those canny Shetland Islanders eh (the're my folks btw, them and the Orcadians!)
It seems very unlikey that we'll do anthing like that here - I see no sign of leverage for our benefit.
The Shetland council certainly made the best of a bad situation, but I would prefer NZ not loss its land resource at all.
Temperate climate, fertile soil, abundance of water, on a planet of finite resources those assets are priceless.
We're sitting pretty Jonesy, that's for sure, but we're letting it slip away. All very quietly and politely, but away it goes, sold to anyone with money.
the big sales however, are yet to come. Wait til next year!
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