PengXin Group

The inner workings of one of the NZ Government's most secret agencies, the Overseas Investment Office, could be blown open if it consents to a Chinese company buying the big Crafar dairy farming estate.

The receivers of the Crafar farms say a bid from a New Zealand-based group is not as generous as the one from a Chinese group.

Two issues are bound to feature in New Zealand Trade Minister Tim Groser's talks in Beijing next week: New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra’s market power in the China domestic market and Chinese investment intentions within New Zealand.

The chairman of New Zealand's largest dairy company has issued a warning over foreign ownership of Kiwi land.

Last week, bids closed for an 83% stake in Fonterra's biggest supplier, Dairy Holdings, which oversees 72 South Island farms. Bidders reportedly include Chinese dairy giant Bright Dairy, a pastoral fund owned by Australian investment bank Macquarie Group, British private equity firm Terra Firma. US private equity firm Carlyle Group and the Harvard Endowment Fund.

China's enormous sovereign wealth fund, the China Investment Corporation, may have set aside up to 1.5% or about $6 billion of its massive foreign exchange reserves to invest in New Zealand assets, including potentially dairy farms.

With commodity prices at record highs, New Zealand must protect its global advantage by keeping New Zealand land for New Zealand citizens, permanent residents and companies, Green Party Co-leader Dr Russel Norman said today.

La compañía de inversiones de China, Shanghai Pengxin Group, tiene pensado invertir US$ 158 millones en la compra de establecimientos lecheros en Nueva Zelanda (las estancias de Crafar).

Pengxin International of Shanghai, which already has farmland holdings in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Cambodia, has offered to buy the 16 North Island Crafar farm properties in New Zealand

Shanghai real-estate mogul Jiang Zhaobai wants to buy the family farms from receivers and predicts a bright future for food producers.