Napier, MSCNewsWire, Thursday 30 June 2016 - France’s major daily newspaper has picked as the blend of jobs and life-style par excellence the Clutha settlement of Kaitangata. The headline says that the old mining town, now also a flourishing agricultural centre, is “the town with no unemployment which is offering its houses at bargain-basement prices in order to attract workers.The town, according to the Paris daily, is a real-life version of a Tolkien village. The newspaper interviewed the Clutha District mayor, Bryan Cadogan, who revealed that his district had only two unemployed.Mr Cadogan seeks to lure to the town professionals from Auckland who he believes will benefit from its easy lifestyle and spectacular scenery.

Le Figaro notes the high cost of living in New Zealand and especially the high cost of metropolitan residential houses here. The daily quotes Mr Cadogan as saying that houses in his area of the type that would appeal to Aucklanders were available in the $230,000 range.

Le Figaro is owned by the Dassault family of aviation fame.

The article follows on a forecast (see adjacent story) by New Zealand industrialist Ken Evans of Napier Engineering to the effect that New Zealand was now becoming a focus for French investment.

He cited the existing major investments here by French companies in cement, electrical goods manufacturing, milking equipment, animal identification, utilities and industrial gases.

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