As we hear the litany of doom and gloom about manufacturing in New Zealand, it would be easy to assume that manufacturing is in crisis; that everyone is shutting down, packing up and leaving; and that no new jobs are being created or industries expanded.

However, this week there was a positive story in this space – the Chinese-owned Yashili Dairy Company has announced two substantial investments in New Zealand, pending approval from the Overseas Investment Office (OIO). These investments are in two milk factories in the Waikato and in South Canterbury of $210 million and $214 million, respectively.

Just to spell it out, this is not only foreign investment but investment in manufacturing. Yashili will create manufacturing jobs, pay taxes, and even make a product higher up the value chain (baby formula). This is one of the constant criticisms of New Zealand manufacturing – agriculture, in particular – that we do not manufacture enough ‘high value’ exports. If ever there was an advertisement for the benefits of FDI, this is it – even for most sceptics.

Not only this, but a glance through the OIO decision summaries for the past few months reveals other exciting investments in New Zealand: The Swedish government is investing in dairy; the Aussie taxpayer in insurance (bet you didn’t read that in the papers); Tag Oil in, well, oil; and Woolworths Australia (owner of Countdown) in shopping centres – plus Boulcott wants more land to expand its hospital.

Hopefully, the Yashili investments will be speedily approved by the OIO. But the list of approvals so far is a reminder of the unnecessary bottlenecks created by the ‘screening and prior approvals’ component of Overseas Investment Act.

A number of approvals were required by overseas interests acquiring companies already 100% owned by overseas interests or a takeover that was the result of a global merger. Or mundane investments needed approval: Woolworths Australia buying shopping centres, the Swedish government buying dairy farms, and a healthcare company buying adjoining land to expand a hospital.

One cannot help but get the overwhelming impression that New Zealand is imposing substantial costs on would-be investors for no reason but to appeal to our baser nationalistic instincts.