New Zealand's investment network to lure more Chinese investors (2)

The network has also secured sponsorship from a major bank, the BNZ, and the country's biggest city with support from the Auckland Council on Tourism, Events and Economic Development, which is keen to see its increasing Chinese population play a greater role in the city's economic life.

However, the network's first year has also seen national debate over the sale of productive assets to foreigners as exemplified by the long and bitter court battle over a bid by China's Shanghai Pengxin Group to buy 16 North Island dairy farms.

The national debate was renewed with Chinese white-ware giant Haier's takeover of New Zealand's iconic Fisher & Paykel Appliances earlier this month.

The New Zealand government has expressed frustration at the slow pace of investment between the two countries despite New Zealand being the first developed nation to sign a free trade agreement with China in 2008 and the launching in February this year of a China trade strategy to double two-way trade from 10 billion to 20 billion NZ dollars (8.23 billion to 16.46 billion U. S. dollars) by 2015.

In August, Deputy Prime Minister Bill English told a conference co-hosted in Wellington by Victoria University and Peking University's School of Government that fears of foreign ownership were frequently overstated, adding that New Zealand had one of the most restrictive overseas investment regimes in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

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