New Zealand could cater for up to 1500 refugees annually within a few years if it wanted to, Immigration New Zealand says.
The first of New Zealand's 750 extra Syrian refugees will arrive in January after the government agreed to take them on top of the existing annual refugee quota of 750.
Immigration New Zealand's Steve McGill told parliament's foreign affairs, defence and trade select committee in Wellington on Thursday that staff were on the ground in and around the Lebanese capital Beirut interviewing up to 350 people already deemed refugees by the United Nations.
Those chosen will be given information about life in New Zealand in the form of DVDs and pamphlets, in their own language, so they would know what to expect on arrival.
The first group of 100 would arrive in Auckland in January.
They will spend six weeks at the government's Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre in Auckland and then enter the community with a Red Cross-managed settlement plan.
Most would initially go to Wellington, where there was already an established Syrian community.
New Zealand, in response to the massive refugee crisis sparked by the Syrian conflict, is taking an extra 750 refugees from that country over the next three years.
However, there were calls to raise the annual quota to 1500 a year and under questioning from Labour's Phil Goff, Mr McGill agreed there was capacity and a community willingness to help.
The Mangere centre usually took 125 people at a time, but it had 196 beds - potentially catering for 1568 refugees each year.
A new resettlement centre would open next year, which would also offer extra capacity.
However, there were issues with the supply of housing, interpreting services in smaller locations, and sometimes mental health and post-trauma services.
"The bigger questions become community capacity. To a level money buys you capacity but equally when you get in to the community services that are needed ... the volunteers and church groups ... it would take communities some time to build capacity."
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