PHOTO: SUPPLIED Rod Drury says there is no downside to allowing the global rich to build and own homes here.
Xero founder Rod Drury has called for international investors to be allowed to buy land in New Zealand as a way to kickstart the construction sector.
He told the Epidemic Response Committee on Thursday that 1000 sections could be made available to wealthy international buyers who pledged on them to build quickly.
That would give work to engineers and architects immediately and provide more work for construction in the coming months.
He said investors who pursued these sorts of projects would not use many local resource – few roads and no schooling. But his experience was that they would open their networks to New Zealand businesses.
Drury said Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s dismissal of an earlier idea to allow visas for people with $50 million to invest as “we don’t want people paying for passports” was too hasty.
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