22 June 2015

Tripartite Economic Alliance Summit:: Auckland Outcomes

The valuable connections made in Los Angeles by the Mayoral-led business delegation this month will boost Auckland’s economy with investment and job creation for years to come.

Mayor Len Brown says that all the business delegates report they got immense value from the summit. Some are now ready or close to being ready to expand overseas to Los Angeles and Guangzhou.

Representatives from 43 Auckland businesses took part in the inaugural Tripartite Economic Alliance Summit in Los Angeles. This follows the signing in November 2014 of the historic alliance, designed to boost economic co-operation between Auckland, Guangzhou and Los Angeles.

Len Brown and councillors Bill Cashmore and Denise Krum led the delegation. Auckland Council organised it with the support of Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development (ATEED), NZTE and MFAT.

Len Brown says “The summit greatly increased our trade and economic relations, has created exciting export opportunities for the participating businesses and enabled us to share knowledge in crucial areas like transport.”

Len Brown says some of the immediate success stories include:

• Screen Auckland held discussions with Los Angeles and Guangzhou counterparts and identified potential production opportunities that could be worth up tens of millions to the Auckland economy in the long term. Screen Auckland will be working hard to secure these opportunities.

• Digital Water, which makes digital water meters, (www.digitalwater.co.nz) secured a meeting with the head and senior executives of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and are now planning a trial for their water meters in LA.

• A manufacturer of ventilation equipment ,HRV, (hrv.co.nz) met a Chinese counterpart and they are now exploring expanding into the Chinese market.

• A high-tech business incubator, Astrolab, (astrolab.co.nz) intends to partner with a business incubator in LA, providing a stepping stone for Auckland biotech companies to commercialise and expand in to LA.

All 45 business delegates paid their own way. IQ Commercial (www.iqcommercial.co.nz) is so confident of deals that will result, it expects its sales to North America to grow by at least 20% in the coming year. The increase to their profit alone will likely result in additional annual tax that would easily surpass the costs incurred by Auckland Council to arrange this delegation.

Len Brown says businesses feel that they now have an excellent understanding of how to do business in Los Angeles.

“It has made them think critically about what they could do differently to be even more successful in Auckland and overseas markets.”

During the summit, Auckland’s Mayor held meetings with his Los Angeles and Guangzhou counterparts. Theysigned a memorandum of understanding between their cities’ ports that will result in greater sharing of best practice and logistics information.

They will begin a formal work plan shortly on a strong collaborative focus over the next couple of years on three broad areas- ports, air routes and tourism and the high- tech sector.

“We will also be pursuing a formal relationship between GridAKL (gridakl.co.nz ) and the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (laincubator.org) , which provides a launching pad programme for international companies in to the LA market.

“The trip underlines how Auckland is fast becoming the innovation hub of Asia-Pacific and is a truly global city. “

ends

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