Farmers sign-on to Asia business ed partnership

Media Release
Embargoed

10AM MONDAY, 16 NOVEMBER 2009

Farmers sign-on to Asia business education partnership

To help New Zealand make the most of opportunities in the Asian century, Federated Farmers has signed-on to the Business Education Partnership – designed to inform young New Zealanders about Asia.

“With the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the offing, young New Zealanders need to think west but above all east, in this, the Asian century,” says Don Nicolson, President of Federated Farmers.

“I’m proud to ‘sign-on’ to the Business Education Partnership. It’s intended to create a much needed shift in the outlook and horizon for all New Zealanders, but our young people especially.

“The World Bank has said food production will need to grow by 50 percent to meet the needs of a surging world population. That underscores the opportunity for a food exporting nation like New Zealand.

“As someone once said, for the first time in our nation’s history, we are living in the right part of the world at the right time. By 2050, half of the world’s population, five billion people, will be living in the Asian region.

“That’s a massive market we need to understand and communicate with. It’s really important to teach our educators and young people about the selling of goods and services people overseas need and want. It’s about respect for our exporters.

“That’s why the wide variety of languages, customs and cultures must be better understood. It’s about understanding what these consumers want and then delivering it.

“That’s a change in the Eurocentric mindset to an Asiancentric one but a change that must be made. The recent free trade agreements signed with China, ASEAN, Malaysia and the Gulf-States, reflect that only two of New Zealand’s top-ten trading partners, are not in our Asia Pacific region.

“That illustrates how far our economy has travelled but we still have a long way to go to get social connectedness.

“Federated Farmers is keen to be a part of the Business Education Partnership taking New Zealand into the Asian century,” Mr Nicolson concluded.

ENDS

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