NZIJ 123 - August 2007

Why the 'green stuff'?

No doubt you will have noticed our increasing emphasis on ‘green stuff’ i.e. environmental issues and sustainability. You may be wondering why this is the case. Well, NZIJ has a 75% interest in a ‘green’ company - Ecosphere Ltd, whose focus is on encouraging people to think about their consumption of precious resources and care for the environment and assisting them to find ‘green’ solutions where possible.
There is a rapidly-growing emphasis globally on ‘green’ issues, helped by such things as a recognition by the mainstream scientific community of the reality of climate change and the depletion of natural resources.
The APEC meeting to be held in Sydney in September, has been described by Australian Prime Minister, John Howard as the most important meeting ever to be hosted by Australia. He expects there will be a significant discussion about climate change, especially considering the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters (US and China) will be there. Not only are these issues important from the environmental point of view but they will in large part determine the future of the global economy and investment.
KiwiSaver: According to one fund manager KiwiSaver has been drawing employers en masse since its commencement at the begining of July. The enhancements to the scheme i.e. the government and compulsory employer subsidies, that were announced in the budget in May have proven to be attractive to large corporate employers without their own superannuation schemes. On the other hand, progress has been a lot slower with individual savers. The IRD records only a few thousand as having currently signed up.
At NZIJ we are receiving more and more enquiries as people realise the benefits to be gained from KiwiSaver and the preferability of choosing rather than accepting a default provider. If you want some advice on KiwiSaver please give us a call as Fritz de Boer has all the information at his fingertips.
The inflow of funds into KiwiSaver will provide a huge fillip to the managed funds industry. As these funds cannot be withdrawn until individuals reach the age of 65 it is a source of long-term capital for investment into the New Zealand economy.