The New Zealand Herald reports that the Government has made an additional NZ$40 million available for investment in new venture capital funds.
It seems pretty sad to me that there isn’t enough private sector capital available to support new enterprise development in NZ. A quick look at the NZVIF website reveals that they currently have NZ$109M invested in six venture funds supported by an additional NZ$151M of private capital. So the total government funding amounts to something like $100 per family. New Zealanders are so incapable of investing on their own that they have to rely on the government to take their own money away from them in the form of taxes to support the development of new businesses.
It would be interesting to know how $100 compares with the total investment capital needed to fund retirement income for the average couple.
And it would be interesting to know how the total goverment investment of $149M ($109M currently invested and an extra $40M available) compares with the amount of investment capital that has been added to the NZ property market over each of the last five years.