The news is one outcome of work being done in the past five years by the Dunedin City Council's settlement support initiative under contract to the Department of Labour.
And the idea of expanding the city's services to include help for refugees has received the stamp of approval from Mayor Dave Cull, who said last night the idea was "fantastic".
Dunedin runs one of 21 settlement support initiatives providing help for migrants.
A council finance, strategy and development committee meeting today will consider a report from settlement support co-ordinator Fi McKay.
The council won the contract from the Department of Labour to deliver the New Zealand settlement strategy in the city in 2007.
The strategy was developed to help deal with labour market skill shortages and an ageing population.
Ms McKay said in her report three years of funding had been provided in 2007, and another three years after that, though funding had remained static "with some council contribution necessary to maintain service delivery".
Ms McKay said last night the cost to the city was minimal, but the benefits were "huge".
The settlement support initiative was designed for refugees and migrants in the first two years of settlement.
Dunedin differed from national trends in that it had higher numbers of migrants from Australia and the United Kingdom,There was no refugee centre, and information was not quantified, but anecdotal evidence suggested numbers coming to the city with refugee status at the moment were low.
On the issue of refugee resettlement, Ms McKay said in the report that after the Christchurch earthquakes, 85 Bhutanese were offered respite at the Araiteuru marae for two weeks, and it was hoped some would move here and form the nucleus of a Bhutanese community as a forerunner to establishing a refugee centre here.
"Over the past four years, there have been indications from the Department of Labour that Dunedin was being considered as a refugee resettlement area.
"Although no decision has been made to settle new refugees here, Dunedin is seen as the next preferred destination for refugee resettlement in New Zealand."
Resettlement areas to host refugees are chosen on the basis of the location of community support and services, as well as a variety of other factors.
Ms McKay said because of the city's success in hosting a significant number of Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees in the 1980s, the presence of the University of Otago, and because Dunedin was used to having a large number of international residents, it was being considered again.
It would need "an awful lot" of community sponsorship to work, and would probably begin with smaller numbers of refugees at first to see how it developed.
The benefits were great, she said.
Apart from the diversity and difference refugees brought to a city, they also often had children, and those children were often more driven to be successful.
Mr Cull said yesterday some refugees came to New Zealand with nothing, while others were "quite well off".
Whatever category they were in, "they all seem to go to Auckland", he said.
"Wouldn't it be a good idea to spread it around?
"I think it would be fantastic if we could attract more people here, for whatever reason."
Newcomers to Dunedin
United Kingdom: 26%
Australia: 21%
Northeast Asia:12%
Southeast Asia: 8%
Western Europe: 7%
US: 6%
Canada: 3%
Ireland: 2%
Southern Asia: 2%
Other: 13%
