Phil Goff Speech: Speech to Incubators New Zealand International Conference on Business Incubation New Thinking Week Sky City, Auckland

Jonathon Kirkpatrick, Chair of Incubators New Zealand, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you this morning. New Zealand’s incubator industry has come of age in recent years with many graduates from business incubators around the country now enjoying international success. So it is a good time for us to host this International Conference on Business Incubation.

Can I offer a warm welcome to all delegates and in particular those who have travelled from around Asia to be here. I would especially like to welcome Mr Wang Rong, President of the Asian Association of Business Incubators

I understand that the Association works to enrich business incubation activities throughout Asia, including here in New Zealand, by facilitating the exchange of information among Asian incubators and the entrepreneurs and early stage ventures they support.

This international perspective is important in this age of globalization. New Zealand is a trading nation. We recognize that in order to succeed in the global economy, we need to have domestic policy settings in place that are conducive to allowing firms to be internationally competitive.
New Zealand is now one of the most open and business-friendly economies in the world.

Getting to this position, however, has required significant economic reforms over the past twenty years.

Wide-ranging micro- and macro-economic reforms in the mid 1980's in particular have emphasised the role of transparency, predictability of policy, the market mechanism, competition, and reduction of government regulation, protection and subsidization.

These have resulted in New Zealand’s agriculture sector – the biggest contributor to our economy -- becoming dynamic, diverse, responsive and internationally competitive.

I hope your visits to the Waikato Innovation Park and the Agriculture Research Institute in Hamilton gave you some insights into the dynamism and innovation that exist in our agricultural and agritechnology sectors. The 1980s economic reforms were felt beyond the farming sector, in manufacturing and in State Owned Enterprises.

Since the mid 1990's New Zealand economic performance has been strong. Our economy is now 25% bigger than it was 7 years ago. The economy is also much more flexible and dynamic. However New Zealand recognises that it cannot stand still. The global economy demands greater competitiveness and we need to speed up the rate of technological change.

Rewarding entrepreneurs for their creativity and a focus on innovation is resulting in the development of high value-added sectors beyond our traditional strengths of agriculture.

These include areas such as biotechnology, quality food and beverages, and specialised manufactured products.

This culture of innovation and new thinking is also evident in other sectors such as the creative industries which includes New Zealand’s very successful screen production industry. And exciting products are emerging from discoveries in our science and technology community.

It is in many of these high-growth areas that business incubators in New Zealand are really making a difference. You will learn more about how this is happening and we look forward to sharing your own experiences during this conference.

New Zealand is a strong advocate of trade liberalization.

We believe all countries will benefit from multilateral reform of the world trading system and the wider Asia Pacific region is an area of focus in this respect.

New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, the Governments economic development agency, has people base in Asia helping New Zealand companies to engage with businesses and customers in those regions.

These markets are growing fast and show considerable promise for kiwi entrepreneurs and startups. Asian-Pacific economies are also important as potential sources of investment.

New Zealand's trade and investment with Asia is growing.

Japan, China and Korea are our third, fourth and fifth most important trading partners respectively. We have free trade agreements with Singapore, Brunei and Thailand and are well down the tracks to being the first OECD country to complete a free trade agreement with China.

We are exploring closer economic relationships with ASEAN, Korea and Japan and considering the possibility of free trade with our partners in APEC and the East Asia Summit.

I hope you enjoy your time here and that you have the opportunity to learn more and contribute to the promising incubation industry and doing business with New Zealand.

Thank you.

ENDS

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