Chinese investment in Northland should be mutually beneficial

The Far North is a unique and beautiful region, and overseas investment should proceed carefully with benefits for Northlanders.

So Chinese interests are keen to invest $1 billion in Northland.

The Far North District Council has signed an agreement which seems, in principle, to say that the council is open to the idea, and open to creating a process that might encourage
Chinese investment.

As long as that process doesn't circumvent existing processes, like say, Overseas Investment Regulations or the Resource Management Act, then what's the problem?

Some say the problem is what do the Chinese expect in return?

If that is the case, we should be also be asking what is in it for us?

Northland is a region of unique poverty - overcrowded housing, child vaccination statistics, so called "Third World disease" and unemployment.

Will Chinese investment create long-term jobs for Northlanders?

If a Chinese company seeks to construct a building in Northland, what percentage of the construction workers should be Northlanders? Ideally, all of them.

If those buildings are related to tourism and creating an infrastructure to enhance the Northland experience for visiting Chinese, who should work in those buildings? Northlanders.

If a golf course is built for Chinese visitors, should it be exclusive to visitors, should Chinese investors pay different rates to locals, are they subject to development or building levies (something that people grumble about in Whangarei) and so on and so on.

What will they get out of it - profits that will be taken off shore.

Or is investing part of that profit back into Northland something that could be a condition of any future deal.

If these and many more questions can be answered, then no one is going to begrudge Chinese investment in Northland, as long as there is mutual benefit.

Because without that, it's not investment - it's just us flogging off the family silver.