Advantages to doing Business in New Zealand
The World Bank and the International Finance Corporation publication “Doing Business 2009” ranks New Zealand 2nd for the “ease of Doing Business”, 1st for “Starting a Business” and 1st for “Protecting Investors” out of the 181 countries ranked, as well as many other high rankings right across its classifications.
Over the past 20 years the New Zealand economy has been transformed from an agrarian economy dependent on concessionary British market access to a more industrialized, low tariff, free market economy that can compete globally. This dynamic growth has boosted real incomes and broadened and deepened the technological capabilities of the industrial sector. Per capita income has risen for nine consecutive years and reached $28,500 in 2008 in purchasing power parity terms. Like the rest of World, the economy fell into recession in 2008, and in line with global peers, the central bank has cut interest rates aggressively; the new National government elected in November 2008, is responding with plans to raise productivity growth and develop infrastructure.
While New Zealand does not have a lot of incentives to attract foreign investors, what the country does have is the ease of doing business without having to go through reams of bureaucracy. New Zealand has no import controls, low or no tariffs and a free floating exchange rate and funds can be remitted without interference from any government regulation.
While New Zealand is a long way from Europe it is well served by international airlines and container shipping.
New Zealand has a highly literate population and has placed an emphasis on tertiary education and training and the knowledge economy. While New Zealand still relies heavily on agricultural primary produce as its main export sector. It also has a growing IT literate workforce and a growing export IT services sector, which could compliment that of Malta by providing the other half of a 24x7 IT support for the growing number of Maltese IT businesses.
New Zealand also has high quality IT Communications with the rest of the world. For example, Wellington has its own CBD modern fibre cabling and New Zealand is linked to the rest of the World by the Southern Cross Cable Network which provides fast, direct, and secure international bandwidth from Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii to the heart of the Internet in the USA and onto Europe. The Southern Cross Cable Network comprises two submarine communications cables which were first commissioned in November 2000 and January 2001. The Southern Cross Network has been engineered until 2025. In 2001 total installed capacity was 80 Gbps, in January 2003 the total protected network was expanded to 240 Gbps and now 430 Gbps.
With new technology continually improving potential transmission speeds, the ultimate size of the Southern Cross Cable Network is likely to considerably exceed the current limit of 4.8 Tbps of fully protected capacity. The Southern Cross Cable Network is an independent company that is owned by Telecom NZ (50%), Singtel-Optus (40%) and Verizon Business (10%) and has offices in Bermuda, Sydney, Auckland and Wellington. For more information visit Southern Cross at: http://www.southerncrosscables.com