There is an old Chinese saying –要想富先修路 (yāo xiǎng fù xiān xiū lù): “if you want to get rich, build a road”. The saying is more apt than ever now the Chinese leadership is rolling out its ambitious “Belt and Road” (BRI) vision. There is now even an academic discipline...

The Government has just launched a new website called Trade Barriers to help in the fight against non-tariff barriers (NTBs).   Headaches in offshore markets such as excessive red tape, slow administrative processes, arbitrary technical standards, duplicative...

Guest post from Kirk Hope, CEO of BusinessNZ Asia New Zealand Foundation recently released a report on the status of school leavers’ Asia-readiness. Data shows only 37 percent of senior secondary school students think Asia-related skills and knowledge will be...

We love trade, so we’re pleased that, in view of the upcoming NZ election, the folks at It’s our future have initiated a campaign highlighting their wish list for trade agreements in the future.  We welcome this debate.  Trade is important and needs to be talked...

Guest post from Phil O’Reilly, member of ABAC New Zealand and Managing Director of Iron Duke Partners These are testing times for trade liberalisation. There has been a lot of talk over the last year about the rise of protectionism and the risks of an all-out trade...

Guest post from Stephen Hoadley, Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations Given the number of free trade agreements that New Zealand has concluded during the past decade, from China to Taiwan to the Pacific islands to the Middle East, one might...