Who Owns New Zealand? CAFCA Releases Latest Key Facts

WHO OWNS NEW ZEALAND?

CAFCA Releases Latest Key Facts

The Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA) has uploaded the 2017 edition of its Key Facts.

They can be accessed at http://canterbury.cyberplace.co.nz/community/CAFCA/key-facts.html

They can be viewed there as graphs (Powerpoint or PDF) or read as text only.

Once again they have been meticulously researched and compiled by CAFCA's Bill Rosenberg.

The main trends are:

· A sharp increase in the proportion of overseas ownership of shares listed on the share market from 33% of listed shares in 2015 to 36% in 2016, reversing a trend that had been falling since 1997.

· An even sharper increase in the estimated proportion of the value of all privately owned shares (included unlisted shares) from 37% of shareholdings in 2014 to 47% in 2015 – a rise that began in 2012 when it bottomed out at 30%.

· In 2016, the Overseas Investment Office approved the acquisition of 465,863 hectares of interests in rural land by overseas investors, of which 362,132 was freehold, 103,731 other interests in land (e.g. leases), and all but 39,971 hectares was from one overseas investor to another. The 465,863 hectares compare to 79,897 hectares in 2015.

· Once again the statistics show a significant ownership of New Zealand companies by investors using tax havens.

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