>use it to buy something that is literally impossible for them to repatriate The asset being fixed in place does not prevent capital outflows. Plus it depends

>use it to buy something that is literally impossible for them to repatriate The asset being fixed in place does not prevent capital outflows. Plus it depends on the purpose of the investment - If it's a means of just parking money, then the only real impact of the purchase is to deny the same purchase to a citizen of the country. That's not a massive issue unless you have a housing shortage (which NZ does, not aided by it's high level of immigration). If on the other hand a return is expected on that investment then you end up with a situation where house prices raise due (in part) to foreign investment, but people still need to live somewhere and so they rent those houses back from the foreign landlord. This absolutely leads to rent extracts which flow out of the country.