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The New Zealand government is to lower the film and television production cost threshold for rebates in a bid to have more global blockbusters made in the country, it announced Wednesday.
The move, to take effect on Oct. 1, followed a review of New Zealand's screen sector by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage.
The Large Budget Screen Production Grant, which provides a 15 percent rebate on productions with at least 15 million NZ dollars (11.99 million U.S. dollars) in New Zealand production expenditure, would be lowered to a qualifying expenditure of 4 million NZ dollars for television productions.
The Post, Digital and Visual Grant qualifying expenditure would be cut from 3 million NZ dollars to 1 million NZ dollars in order to build on the country's growing strength in high-value post production, digital and visual effects, and enable smaller New Zealand companies to be more successful in attracting work to New Zealand.
The two incentive schemes had been successful in bringing films, TV and post-production work to New Zealand and the changes would grow the screen sector industry, Minister of Business, Innovation and Employment Steven Joyce and Minister of Culture and Heritage Chris Finlayson said in a joint statement.
The review period did not include the making of The Hobbit trilogy by director Peter Jackson, which had created an estimated 3,000 jobs, boosted tourism, and pumped millions of dollars of additional spending into the wider New Zealand economy, Joyce said in the statement.
"The incentives have ensured New Zealand's screen industry has continued to grow and employ thousands of New Zealanders despite challenging global economic conditions," Joyce said.
"The production and post-production sectors alone contributed 638 million NZ dollars to gross domestic product in 2011, up from 313 million NZ dollars in 2005. Total gross revenue for the entire screen industry was 3 billion NZ dollars in 2012, up from 2.6 billion NZ dollars in 2005," he said.
"This shows New Zealand's screen industry is making steady gains, and is competing on the world stage."
Without the Large Budget Screen Production Grant, most of the 35 major screen productions such as Avatar and King Kong that received rebates would not have come to New Zealand, Finlayson said in the statement.
"Industry sustainability is what's driving these changes. We want more international screen productions to come to New Zealand and utilize our world-class expertise and scenery," he said.
"The changes could also mean more local film and TV producers are able to make content that is attractive to overseas markets."
From 2004-2011, studios spent 1.937 billion NZ dollars in New Zealand for 35 major productions and received rebates of 268.3 million NZ dollars.
