Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Nick Leggett: Infrastructure NZ Chief Executive on the government setting aside $65 million dollars to loosen the capitalisation rules for investor

Transcript

Nick Leggett: Infrastructure NZ Chief Executive on the government setting aside $65 million dollars to loosen the capitalisation rules for investor · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Government says it's going to help infrastructure investment in New
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Zealand seventy five million dollars over the next four years
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  Speaker 1: to encourage foreign investment in New Zealand infrastructure. Also wants
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: to make it easier for startups to attract and retain
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  Speaker 1: high quality staff. Infrastructure ends ed. See you nickle get
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  Speaker 1: with me this morning.
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  Speaker 2: Nick.
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  Speaker 1: Good morning Low Ryan. Now how is this going to work?
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  Speaker 2: Well, this is another sort of tweak in the infrastructure system.
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  Speaker 2: The government has been moving sort of step by step
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  Speaker 2: to make improvements and you know, in itself it's on
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  Speaker 2: a massive tweet. But essentially, what they're going to do
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  Speaker 2: is allow foreign known companies to fund a higher proportion
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  Speaker 2: of their investment in New Zealand subsidiaries through debt. At
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  Speaker 2: the moment, they can't do that. And what that means
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  Speaker 2: is that it's going to reduce the government's ability to
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  Speaker 2: collect tax on that investment. And so that's what this
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  Speaker 2: sixty five million is actually really just income tax revenue
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  Speaker 2: that the government thinks they're going to forego as a
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  Speaker 2: result of this change. What it does is that sends
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  Speaker 2: the signal that New Zealand is a better place to
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  Speaker 2: invest in infrastructure that there are some incentives at play,
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  Speaker 2: and it's really important because we are at the bottom
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  Speaker 2: of the world. We don't while we've got there's great
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  Speaker 2: confidence in our government and our and our democracy, in
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  Speaker 2: our systems. You know, there do have to be incentives
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  Speaker 2: to get people to want to put money into New Zealand,
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  Speaker 2: which in turn grows our economy.
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  Speaker 1: As you said, this is sixty five million dollars over
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  Speaker 1: four years. It's not going to change the world overnight
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  Speaker 1: very quickly. Is there a what would be a big
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  Speaker 1: ticket item you'd be looking for in the budget?
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's really you know, there might be some projects
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  Speaker 2: that the government want to move faster on, so perhaps
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  Speaker 2: projects that they are they've investigated and they want to
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  Speaker 2: drive faster. There might be some more money potentially perhaps
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  Speaker 2: for the Auckland Second Harbor crossing. It could be things
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  Speaker 2: like that, or new road, school or hospital projects. But
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  Speaker 2: I would say this, you know the Prime Minister head
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  Speaker 2: has investments some of a couple of months ago. That's
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  Speaker 2: sending the signal to the world that New Zealand is
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  Speaker 2: wanting to partner where it comes to building infrastructure. That's
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  Speaker 2: really important because we know we've got this massive infrastructure
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  Speaker 2: gain and if people want, you know, and we do
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  Speaker 2: want stronger economy to be more productive, to be able
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  Speaker 2: to pay for those schools and hospitals and in a
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  Speaker 2: stronger standard of living over time, infrastructure is vital for that.
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  Speaker 2: And so I think this is a good move from
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  Speaker 2: the government, and it's one of a number of small moves,
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  Speaker 2: but they all equal hopefully greater strength in our infrastructure
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  Speaker 2: market and the fact that we're going to be building
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  Speaker 2: more pretty soon.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, moving into Nick, appreciate your time. That's infrastructure and
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  Speaker 1: nco Nick Leggett for.
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  Speaker 2: More from earlier edition with Ryan Bridge.
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  Speaker 1: Listen live to News Talks at Being from five am weekdays,
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