Minister will look again at business migrant scheme

By SIMON COLLINS

Business investors may be allowed to settle in New Zealand with less money if they go outside Auckland, says Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel.

She said yesterday that changes in the business migrant scheme were likely to be included with changes in the points system for skilled migrants, which she mentioned at the Government's business forum in Auckland last week.

She was commenting on an expanded application by Hastings orchardist Wi Huata, husband of Act MP Donna Awatere-Huata, for special permits for Chinese migrants investing $500,000 each in a proposed horticultural project at Wairoa.

At present, business immigrants must invest between $1 million and $5 million depending on their age.

"I will not put forward a recommendation to alter the rules for a particular form of investment," said Ms Dalziel.

"I would rather look at the overall rules, and one of the things that I have indicated I am prepared to look at is whether the $1 million limit is too high for investment outside Auckland.

"In other countries they have different limits for different parts of the country where they are trying to encourage investment."

New Zealand also had lower thresholds for business migrants investing in regions with high unemployment when the business category was introduced in the 1980s. The lowest threshold, for the areas with highest unemployment, was $550,000.

Wairoa has one of the country's highest unemployment rates. Its 510 unemployed people at the 1996 census represented 12.4 per cent of its workforce, when the national average was 7.7 per cent.

Former Immigration Minister Tuariki Delamere was sacked just before the election last year after he granted immigration permits to 12 Chinese investors in Mr Huata's horticulture project as an exception to the normal $1 million limit.

Last month Mr Huata presented a revised proposal to the Tairawhiti Development Taskforce at a meeting in Wairoa chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister, Jim Anderton. The proposal would now involve permits for 160 Chinese investors to bring in $500,000 each, a total of $80 million.

Mr Huata said the money would be invested in a company which would lease between 800ha and 1200ha of Maori land around Wairoa for intensive horticultural development, creating 1000 jobs. "We have an $80 million opportunity in an area that is in desperate need of it."

He said Wairoa had some of the finest soils in the world and could produce summer fruits such as apricots and nectarines several weeks earlier than the main Hawkes Bay area. His plan would make Wairoa the country's "summerfruit capital."

He has also asked the Government for a grant towards costs such as preparing a prospectus, negotiating with investors, administration and travel.

The Government has allocated $1.69 million this year to attracting "strategic investments," defined as creating at least 200 jobs or investing at least $50 million. These limits may be relaxed for some regions.

The Deputy Secretary of Economic Development, Leith Comer, said Mr Huata's proposal was being considered by ministers, along with other immigration ideas arising out of the business-Government forum.

"There is an interest in getting the immigration environment right," he said. "Our minister [Mr Anderton] is keen to promote that particular issue."

Ms Dalziel said decisions were likely early in the New Year.

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