Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says Amazon Web Services is spending $7.5 billion on storage and data centres – a move announced by the company four years ago.
Luxon told Newstalk ZB the move was expected to boost GDP by $11 billion, creating 1000 jobs, and was the largest ever publicly announced tech investment in New Zealand.
Amazon unveiled the plans in 2021, saying the data centres would open in 2024 – but construction was halted in 2023. As of last December, the plan was to open the data centres this year.
The company is expected to make an official announcement at 10am.
The news follows the government’s announcement yesterday it would make an exemption to the foreign buyers ban for wealthy investors on the Active Investor Plus residency visa – also known as the “golden visa”.
The visa requires investors to spend $5m on high-risk investments in New Zealand over three years.
Houses those on the visa – who do not need to spend six months a year in New Zealand – can buy or build are restricted to those worth $5m or more.
