New Zealand is placed fourteenth out of 82 countries in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s global business environment rankings.

SUSTAINABLE GROWTH
Deregulation over the past two decades has helped New Zealand develop into an open, globally competitive and robust market economy. Since 2000, New Zealand’s GDP growth has averaged around 3.5 percent, exceeding that of the USA, Japan, the UK and Australia.

TRANSPARENCY
Corruption and barriers to information flows are virtually unknown in New Zealand. The country ranks first equal with Denmark and Finland on the 2007 Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index.

ACCESS TO MARKETS
New Zealand has a closer economic relationship (CER) with Australia. This agreement includes extensive free trade, migration and the convergence of NZ and Australia’s regulatory environments. New Zealand trades actively with the huge and rapidly developing markets of Asia. The P4 free trade agreement recently signed between New Zealand, Chile, Singapore, and Brunei underlines the potential for New Zealand to act as an entrepot between the eastern and western sides of the Pacific. New Zealand has also signed a free trade agreement with Thailand, and has entered into separate negotiations with China, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

CLUSTERS
New Zealand has developed a network of industry-specific and regional groupings with a view to developing business growth, quality and innovation. These clusters range from information technology (often in association with a university), to food and biotechnology, creative and media and engineering and manufacturing. Examples include Auckland’s marine and boatbuilding centres, and the Waikato Innovation Park which specialises in agri-biotech.

REPRESENTATIVE SAMPLES
New Zealand ’s population and culture mirrors that of many developed countries on a smaller scale, making it a popular location for test marketing new products and services. Companies which have conducted trials here include Ericsson, Vodafone, BMW and IBM.

TIME ZONES
New Zealand is famous for being the first country to greet the sun each day. Workers start two hours ahead of Australia while the business day covers the afternoon on the West Coast of America, much of Asia’s day, and morning in Europe. This offers considerable benefits in managing global workflows, by being able to undertake work when other regions are asleep, and facilitating communications between disparate locations.