A feudal future?

The country is weighed down by a mountain of foreign debt and ownership.

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16th October, 2010

Foreign ownership

In the decade to March 2009, about $340 billion was invested in New Zealand. Of that, about $205 billion was spent on replacing old assets, leaving $135 billion for new ones. Whether this was sufficient for our growth aspirations belongs to another column. This one is about how the investment was financed. Extraordinarily little was financed from New Zealand savings: in total about $42 billion in the 10 years (about $1000 per New Zealander each year). The remaining $93 billion, more that twice as much, was financed offshore, so about two-thirds of the new assets were financed by foreigners. Some ...

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