- Hon Nicola Willis
News that US supermarket giant Costco is planning to open a second New Zealand store in South Auckland is great news for Kiwi shoppers, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says.
"Today's announcement follows the introduction to Parliament last week of legislation creating a consenting express lane so that new supermarkets can be approved and built more quickly.
"The Government is working with Costco to ensure that we are doing everything possible to make consenting as quick and efficient as possible," Nicola Willis says.
Property company Kiwi Property announced this morning that it has reached conditional agreement to sell Costco 6.4 hectares of land next to its 53ha residential, commercial and retail development at Drury.
The Kiwi Property development, which received Fast-track approval last week, is projected to inject over $1.45 billion into the Auckland's economy over the next 11 years and deliver about 3420 full-time jobs in construction and related services.
"Costco's planned expansion will add to that boost by creating more construction jobs," Nicola Willis says.
"It is also fantastic news for shoppers. More competition means more choice and lower prices.
"Costco's West Auckland store has already improved competitive dynamics in that local area and created a new export pathway for several New Zealand food suppliers.
"Costco Westgate has 250,000 members who value the choice it offers. The store employs hundreds of staff.
"The establishment of another store in South Auckland will give more Aucklanders - as well as people in Waikato access to the same choice.
""Today's announcement is a vote of confidence in New Zealand and, hopefully, the first of several such announcements from Costco.
"Developments like this benefit from the steps the Government has taken to make it easier to build supermarkets in New Zealand. They are:
- explicitly allowing developments that improve grocery competition to access fast-track approvals, giving greater certainty of costs and timeframes
- establishing a nationwide building consenting process for grocery developments so they only need to deal with a single, expert consenting authority; and
- changing the requirements for MultiProof to allow standardised designs for multiple supermarkets to be consented faster."
