Chinese Investors spending up big in NZ

[brendan]

It is not xenophobic to be be concerned about sovereign wealth funds (from any country) buying up farming lands with the intention of supplying their domestic markets, similar to what is happening in Ethiopia. http://www.ethiopianreview.com/content/9937

Areas of concern include:

• Starvation. Large farms are growing massive amounts of food, but the local population (us) not having access to the food as it is intended solely for the overseas market of the country that owns the farms. The objective of the farm owners may not be profit, but feeding their own undernourished population.
• Lower tax revenue for NZ. Like most property investors, I imagine the sovereign wealth funds would want to minimize the amount of tax they had to pay. Selling produce from the farms at cost to the overseas distributor would allow the farms to pay zero tax. (But then again, recent reports say farmers pay hardly any tax anyway).

After travelling around south america, I talked to locals where they had similar problems to the ones described above.

[TheLiberalLeft]

Sticking to point: For heaven's sake, Perry, the issue of race and racism when discussing the issue of Chinese buying NZ assets is inherently linked. Of course not from the financial standpoint of the buyers and sellers in each individual case - they couldn't give a rat's, but for the man on street it is important. Just listen to the proles on talkback radio whenever this issue is raised. That form of media usually deals with the lowest-common-demoninator, sure, but for that very reason it's obviously an important variable for politicians to consider. Why do you think they regard it as such a hot potato?

Why do you think it's elicited so many replies?

I'm trying to discuss the pros and cons.

[Perry]

What goes on in talk-back radio is for them to determine.
The present concern is what's going on in these Forums.

Discuss the pros and cons of the consequences (and/or
potential consequences) of Chinese investment in NZ,
but just stick to that and not drag the thread off-topic
with your personal fetish distractions.

Go start a thread in the Coffee Club area of the forums
on your personal bents about ethnicity, etc.

Not here. You're de-railing the topic.

Perry
Moderator

[mortgage broker]

Pros

Fresh capital for Nzer's to use, yes maybe on plasma screens but maybe on more productive assets as well
A good demand for NZ assets adds more comfort to lenders - useful in a nation of borrowers
Possibly more tax revenue if the investments lead to more profit being made in NZ

[eri]

if nz wants to sell it's stuff overseas

and nz'ers want to buy overseas products, companies and land

it's expected that "overseas" will want to buy here

in fact they have little option as when we send all the kiwi OS at some stage it needs to return to the roost

BUT, being such a little fish NZ does need to monitor and guide what happens

imho

[speights boy]

BUT, being such a little fish NZ does need to monitor and guide what happens

imho

Foreign companies buy NZ forests to ensure security

This week Hong Kong investment company Greenheart Group, formerly known as Omnicorp, confirmed that it has sealed a previously flagged deal to buy the Mangakahia forest near Dargaville from its own largest shareholder, Sino-Forest Corporation.

Toronto-listed Sino-Forest is a major forest plantation operator in China but is owned by a consortium of largely American or Canadian investors.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/4535521/Foreign-companies-buy-NZ-forests-to-ensure-security

If anyone is interested, google... sino forest fraud... , and read the FT.com article that comes up at top of the list.

[donna]

Chinese Real Estate Bubble finally imploding?

This is a wonderful blog site nakedcaptialism - and one I follow now....here is an article on the current state of China and how it will affect all countries exporting to China....

China has accomplished the impressive feat of bringing literally hundreds of millions out of poverty in a comparatively short time frame.

China escaped much of the impact of the global financial crisis by ramping up investment even higher than its pre-crisis level. It now has investment approaching 50% of GDP, an unheard of level on a sustained basis. A big chunk of that is housing related (housing is an estimated 13.5% of GDP), and prices have long been considerably out of line with incomes, a telltale sign of a bubble. In Beijing, admittedly one of the hottest markets, an average priced new apartment was equal to 57 years of average worker savings (and if you tried to pay for it with a super-long dated mortgage, you’d be in hock even longer, since you would also need to cover the interest charges).

I feel we are watching a huge storm unstoppable financial storm approaching.....

Another warning sign is inventory overhang; the Wall Street Journal reports tonight that Standard Chartered forecasts that level of unsold apartments in secondary cities will amounts to roughly 20 months of sales by year end (and that’s before considering that many of the apartments are being acquired as investments rather than for use).

The article has quotes from the Wall Street Journal - saying essentially if China can hold off for 2 - 3 years that will be the best case scenario.

Source

So there will more than likely be another US style financial collapse but it's not our only challenge there's too much info out there to ignore -the 3 Es (economy, energy, and environment) are all looking very grim. While there is talk of a 'peace making' law coming in next year for environmental protection dealing with New Zealand's exclusive economic zone (EZ) - last night on Close Up there was talk of huge oil reserves in our EZ. Try stopping a desperate USA and co. from coming here and getting it out of the ground and the impact on the environment will be depressing to watch.

Sorry for the doom and gloom post -

cheers,

Donna

[donna]

Foreign companies buy NZ forests to ensure security

This week Hong Kong investment company Greenheart Group, formerly known as Omnicorp, confirmed that it has sealed a previously flagged deal to buy the Mangakahia forest near Dargaville from its own largest shareholder, Sino-Forest Corporation.

Toronto-listed Sino-Forest is a major forest plantation operator in China but is owned by a consortium of largely American or Canadian investors.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/4535521/Foreign-companies-buy-NZ-forests-to-ensure-security

If anyone is interested, google... sino forest fraud... , and read the FT.com article that comes up at top of the list.

Thanks for the post - very interesting I found this.....

A default swap, or CDS, is essentially an insurance contract on a bond that pays out if the issuer defaults. The greater the likelihood of default, the more the contract is worth.

As of Thursday afternoon, the price of a CDS on Sino debt was sitting at 1,464 basis points, more than triple the level at the end of May, according to Markit, a leading financial information company.
What that means is in order to purchase default insurance on $10-million of Sino debt, you would pay more than $1.46-million, up from around $400,000 as recently as a week and a half ago.
In other words, the CDS contracts are today worth more than three times their value at the end of last month. A holder of this investment would have made several times the return of someone prescient or informed enough to short the stock.
The price jump took place almost entirely on June 2, after Muddy Waters publicly accused Sino of falsifying its financial statements, causing the shares to go into a tailspin.
Officials at the TSX-listed forest-products company have denied the allegations and vowed to provide proof of ownership of thousands of hectares of forests in China.

Source

It was published just hours ago.

Cheers,

Donna

[speights boy]

Hmmmm.

Billions smuggled from China by officials

Thousands of corrupt officials have fled China with an estimated 800 billion yuan ($150 billion) over the last decade and a half, says a report published, briefly, by China's central bank.

Higher ranking officials took their ill-gotten gains, sometimes in suitcases of cash, to western countries such as Australia, Canada and the US, while the lower ranks with less money went to Russia, Mongolia, Thailand and Malaysia.

The South China Morning Post said the report revealed complex transactions ''including money transfers through intermediaries both at home and abroad, forging false contracts, and the hiding of illicit money flow under the guise of legitimate deals.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/world/5156746/Billions-smuggled-from-China-by-officials

[speights boy]

This guy owned 14% of sino forest.

Paulson dumps its entire Sino-Forest position

Paulson & Co., which until recently was Sino-Forest’s (TRE-T2.73-0.46-14.42%) largest shareholder, has sold its entire position in the company.

“Due to the uncertainty over Sino-Forest's public disclosures and financial statements, we have sold our stock and await the results of the independent committee's investigation,” the hedge fund said in a statement released by its public relations firm.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/streetwise/paulson-dumps-its-entire-sino-forest-position/article2068199/

[speights boy]

This will not surprise many; apart perhaps those who chose to believe.
We need 'The Realist' back, to give us the positive spin.

BAIL FOR WANG ON BRIBERY CHARGES

Laying of bribery and money laundering charges against two former Crafar farms bidders has left the future of multi-million-dollar projects in New Zealand and in the Pacific up in the air.

And it has emerged that a company linked to former All Black Michael Jones may also suffer, as it has a large sum of money tied up in a deal with those charged.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10760101

[flyernzl]

Our NZ$ is the highest on record against the greenback

Wrong.

In 1971 one NZ Dollar would buy you US1.38

[speights boy]

Iceland Rejects Chinese Billionaire’s Land Plan
By Omar Valdimarsson

Iceland’s government denied Chinese billionaire investor Huang Nubo permission to purchase land in the island’s north, saying such a transfer of property would be “incompatible” with the country’s laws.

The government won’t let Huang, through his company Beijing Zhongkun Investment Group Co., proceed with a planned acquisition of 300 square kilometers (116 square miles) of land, the Reykjavik-based Internal Affairs Ministry said in an e- mailed statement yesterday.
..........
Huang said his connection with Iceland started 30 years ago when he was studying at Peking University.
His roommate and good friend back then was from Iceland and later married a politician.
Huang donated $1 million last year to set up an Icelandic- Chinese poet-exchange program.

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-25/iceland-blocks-chinese-billionaire-huang-nubo-from-purchasing-land-tract?category=%2Fnews%2Fmostread

[eri]

China is now the biggest importer of New Zealand dairy products by value. In 2010, it purchased about 353 million kg of New Zealand milk products - a more than fivefold increase from 69 million kg in 2008, the year the bilateral free trade agreement was entered into. In 2010, more than 60 per cent of the imported dairy products in China market were from New Zealand.These are the kind of metrics that underpin Key's optimism.But unfortunately the New Zealand public seems not to realise just how big a role the Chinese market has played in underwriting our own economic survival post the Global Financial Crisis.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/ne...ectid=10781723

[speights boy]

Quote "Any frequent visitor to China (as I am) can't help but be enthused at the immense wealth prospects that New Zealand can capture if it gets the China equation right." Unquote

No mention of the air that you can't breathe, the water you can't drink, the poisoned fish, the vegetable grown in toxic soil.

As they continue to destroy their own environment they look elsewhere.

The number three reason that Chinese want to emigrate after getting their money out, and education......environment.