Overseas investment review delayed again

The Crafar Farms tender box at real estate company Bayleys' Auckland offices. Photo / Richard Robinson

Release of the long running review of the Overseas Investment Act has been delayed again as the Government grapples with the prospect of cashed up offshore investors swooping on debt-laden kiwi farms
such as the Crafar dairy empire.

According to Prime Minister John Key, the review was to have been released last week but within days Finance Minister Bill English's office indicated it woud be this week.

Today English said it would not be this week and "we're not putting a date on it". He said officials were in the final stages of the review process, but the farm issue had come relatively recently and they were now "trying to get a handle on how big an issue that might be".

"Out on the farm real estate market you've got a lot of farmers with high levels of debt on the other hand banks are trying to get individual farmers' circumstances sorted out and clearly some overseas investors who regard our land as relatively cheap."

English said that particular set of circumstances had been seen before. "Clearly we don't want to get overly concerned about it if it's just another cycle. If there's some kind of permanent shift that
would be a concern."

English said Hong Kong company Natural Dairy NZ's bid for the Crafar dairy farms had brought the issue into the public domain, "that's not the only potential that we see on the horizon".

Launching the review in May last year, English said it was intended to make foreign investment more simple and attractive while at the same time protecting sensitive land, assets and resources. It was also
hoped the review, originally scheduled for completion by the middle of last year, would result in a more streamlined process to allow faster
decisions.

Meanwhile, Green Party co-leader Russel Norman, who has called for greater controls on foreign investment in farmland this week announced a private members bill which would prevent offshore investors from buying any land deemed to be "sensitive" under the existing Overseas Investment Act which Key has labelled "extreme".

Norman said the Government had been sending out mixed messages on the issue with Key expressing concern about foreign investment in farms while English was investigating how to make investment easier for foreign companies with his "seemingly never-ending Overseas Investment review."