Forum Archive Index - October 2001

["Gary Wilson - Brisbane" <fastmail@bigpond.net.au>]

Great comment.  I looked up this site http://www.citypopulation.de/ [which incidentally is excellent] and found there are around 70 cities that have a population greater than NZ!  The country is not geographically strategic like Singapore, and does not have 'numerous' neighbour nations like, say, similarly sized Norway. In addition its clear that anything like free trade in agricultural products is not on the horizon anytime soon.  The strategic options for NZ generally look rather limited. 

 

[NZSE does not appear to have been that adroit - on the other hand the hand it has been dealt is weak - many corporates are overseas entities listed in London or New York because of the historic lack of domestic capital - and a small domestic base has also been a constraint in being able to expand into bigger offshore markets.  The fate of the NZSE is to be a (very) local board - probably operating on the ASX platform or similar.]

 

The NZ government also seems incapable of recognising global realties.  NZ is small and a long way away from any other markets.  What incentive are they providing for real value add activities to be domiciled in NZ - rather than a continued exploitation of local resources and markets [like Edison takeover of Contact].