It is an enormous pleasure to be able to join with you today and to be able to speak to you on the growing business relationship and trading opportunities between New Zealand and the United Kingdom. I have the opportunity to visit New Zealand on a not infrequent basis and every time I come I see more evidence of the opportunities being taken up by New Zealand businesses looking to the UK as a springboard to global growth.

As you have already been told I am the UK’s Special Representative for International Trade and Investment; a long winded but descriptive title for what I do.  The UK is a liberal, globalised economy which is moving or has moved from an industrial to knowledge based and value added services led business environment.  We are much less protective than some of our European colleagues and as an island nation, which built an empire on international trade; we are much more focused on globalisation and its benefits than continental isolation.

In my role I make regular visits around the business community in the UK, encouraging businesses with the right aims and objectives to enter the international arena and I also see how inward investors are finding their hosts in the UK and how their businesses are growing, how we can help them penetrate other markets and thereby expanding globally as a result of setting themselves up in the UK.

Additionally I make visits all over the world in support of the UK’s globalised economy and policy to encourage greater freedom and fairer trade between nations within the multilateral business environment of the WTO.  I meet key business people. I’m given fantastic opportunities to compare and contrast the UK with other countries, how other countries are engaging with globalisation or not and see how we can improve the business relationship with the UK.

I try to find and spot strengths and opportunities that enable business in, and with, the UK to grow.

So today we are here as, and to discuss as ‘Business Partners and Friends in the 21st Century’.  Now I know it’s corny but friends need friends but it’s true.  Britain and New Zealand have, of course, a long heritage together, a shared heritage, the friendship of shared background and culture. This manifests in a number of ways – and one of them is in pure business potential.
I was reading as a part of my briefing for this royal visit, which included other things apart from trade, extracts from a book called “with the Royal Tour” by E. F. Knight; he was a journalist for the Morning Post and accompanied the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York on their 1901 royal tour of the world, or more correctly Empire as they travelled a total of 45,000 miles.  The Duke on his return was invested as The Prince of Wales and later became King George V.

“It may interest you to know” the Prince said in a speech on his return to the City of London; “that we travelled over 45,000 miles, 33,000 miles by sea and 12,000 by land and I think it is a matter on which all may feel proud that, with the exception of Port Said, we never set foot on any land where the Union Jack did not fly”. The tour lasted 7 months in total.  I’m now coming to the end of only a month long global series of visits and I that’s long enough with the way we conduct our modern lives 100 years later.

In his speech at the Guildhall return banquet, he made the following comments to the business community: “To the distinguished representatives of the commercial interests of the Empire whom I have the pleasure of meeting here today I venture to allude to the impression, which seemed generally to prevail among their brethren across the seas, that the old country must wake up if she intends to maintain her old position of pre-eminence in her colonial trade against foreign competitors”.  I would say that the UK has “woken up” hence my presence here today.

He goes on to say that there are boundless opportunities for business to grow and “all this can be enjoyed under conditions of healthy living, liberal laws and free institutions!…  But one condition, and one only, is made by our colonial brethren, and that is: “Send us suitable emigrants!”  I would go further, and appeal to my fellow-countrymen at home to prove the strength of the attachment to the Motherland to her children by sending to them only of her best.”

It strikes me that the sentiment is not altogether lost on us today a hundred odd years later as we are still sending some of our best, as of the total immigration into New Zealand, a third are still from Britain to this day.

Turning to the here and now; sometimes the equation can be simple. You’ve got a great idea, we’ve got investors and consumers or the other way around. Or, we’ve got market potential and an existing channel to market and you might have just the innovation needed to perfect that market opportunity. Either way I like to think that business is supposed to be a win – win.  The UK is increasingly becoming an ‘early adopter’ of innovation and diversity.

New Zealand and the UK have a very long trading history and this has led to significant investments by each country in the other’s economy. As a result there is an extraordinary diversity in the nature of commercial relationships between the two of us.

The UK offers a stable and productive environment – with liberal laws – for doing business. As a member of the European Union, the UK is part of the world’s largest trading entity. Companies based in the UK are well placed to do business in the European marketplace initially or take the further plunge and into the global marketplace.

The UK is New Zealand’s fifth most important export market and New Zealand imports from the UK have remained around the 1.1billion New Zealand dollars level since the early 90s.

You’ve got an international reputation for your open and liberalised economy.  This liberalisation means you are well placed to develop long term international competitiveness and for the UK companies I talk to at home I can also say that New Zealand has compelling benchmarks that includes:

• A highly skilled workforce
• A flexible deregulated labour market
• And you are ranked as best in the world for ‘Ease of Doing Business’ by the World Bank in 2004 and 2005.
• The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor ranks New Zealand as one of the most entrepreneurial countries in the world.

You have ideas, skills, energy and that nimbleness that comes with your size and outlook.  We can offer you markets, money and the potential to grow globally.

But I would like you to know we have more than just capital and market access to offer investors and business partners.  The UK is also innovative, high-tech, knowledge-based, de-regulated and competitive.  In fact, part of our rationale for welcoming foreign investment is that is introduces yet more competition into our market and so makes all our domestic industries even better-placed to deliver in the global marketplace.  We want these stimuli.

And the fact is, no matter what new market you or we try to break into, it’s going to be challenging. For you Australia, Asia and the USA are often considered as alternatives.  But given the amount of support available in New Zealand and the UK, and our similarities and historical links, I would like to suggest to you that the UK makes much more sense for a Kiwi firm looking for international expansion.  We talk the same business language and there are, I would like to think, opportunities, synergies and incentives to help New Zealand firms get established quickly and onto the European or global road to success.

These include massive opportunities that span several years, such as those presented by the London Olympics, modernising government initiatives, sustainability, or smaller, time sensitive, niche opportunities, where Kiwi ingenuity and pragmatism has lead to the development of efficient, innovative, best of breed products and solutions that are a perfect fit for the UK business environment in both the public and private sector.

By working together, New Zealand and British companies are capitalising on business opportunities within each market and the increased chances of realising their own business targets. A number of companies are already doing this, for example:

In the UK – English, Welsh and Scottish Railways, known as EWS, have partnered with a New Zealand company, Jade, to ensure they have maximum reliability and performance across their rail network transporting coal around the country.

While the very British brand of Cadbury is investing 20 million New Zealand Dollars in new buildings, plant and environmental work in Dunedin.  As a part of the investment, Cadbury will establish a research and product development centre here.  And why?  It’s not doing it because the view out the window is nice, although that is perfectly true.  It is doing it because New Zealand offers a strong business case for this sort of partnership.

Newcastle City Council is increasing its commitment to minimising its environmental impacts by trialling nine new state of the art hybrid electric buses designed and produced by the New Zealand company Designline.

The BBC uses New Zealand company Metra’s 3D animation and graphics for its weather forecasting visuals and as a result of this success the company has been able to penetrate into the European market and their product for the BBC is being imitated on CNN and other international television channels.

British yacht designer Ed Dubois teams up with New Zealand companies such as Alloy Yachts and New Zealand Yachting Developments to ensure that the workmanship and engineering that goes into many of his internationally renowned yachts is of the highest standard.

Okay so were good at partnering and there are some well documented successes.  How can you or anyone in New Zealand access this business network and all that we in the UK have to offer.  Well, the New Zealand Trade & Enterprise’s beachhead programme helps New Zealand companies establish a foothold in the UK market – but that’s not all as we’re friends so our government agency UK Trade and Investment also helps New Zealand companies establish themselves in the UK and once in the UK you are then eligible to make use of all UKTI’s services throughout the global market place enabling your companies to grow into Europe or globally.  But again, we’re not just doing this because it’s a nice, friendly, fluffy thing to do.  We’re doing it because we have a shared culture and it makes good business and economic sense for us to work together.

The Memorandum of Understanding between UK Trade and Investment and New Zealand Trade and Enterprise shows the absolute commitment on the part of both countries to increase our ease of doing business together.  There is much to be gained on both sides through this MoU and I know it will help both our markets become increasingly interlinked and offer greater potential growth.

In the 21st Century, key issues affecting trade – such as climate change – mean that we are starting to hear business competitors talk in a way we have not heard before. You hear them now talking about working together to find common solutions to global problems. Especially for New Zealand and its Export Year 07 promotion, the trade relationship and opportunity between New Zealand and the United Kingdom means that these two countries can be working together to do just that.

“Business partners and friends in the 21st Century” – nice phrase – I believe it makes sound business sense.