Manukau The Top Enteprenurial City In New Zealand

A recent survey has found that Manukau is the leading entepreneurial city in the country, has higher entrepeneurship rates than the United States and ranks near the top of the world overall.

That’s one finding of the Bartercard Global Entepreneurship Monitor NZ 2002 (GEM report). The Manukau analysis was carried out by Unitec on behalf of Manukau City Council. Entrepeneurship is a critical part of economic growth as it sparks initiatives and new business startups.

The survey found that whereas 14% of New Zealanders are entrepeneurs in some way (431,000), a total of 14.8% of Manukau residents are in this category. The second-ranked New Zealand city is Waitakere.

The research also found that Manukau City makes the most of new products, services and technology, has the greatest market expansion capability and export focus. Manukau has over 17,300 businesses and its economy has been growing at 5% over the past year.

New Zealand as a whole ranks just behind India and Thailand and is one of a cluster of nations ranked together.

The global average is 8%. Japan ranked bottom at 2% and Thailand top at 18%. Australia was well below NZ at 8.6%.

Women make up 37% of the total number of NZ entrepreneurs and across both sexes the level of education was an important factor in promoting entrepreneurship.

The GEM survey also found that Maori are every bit as entrepreneurial as European New Zealanders with an 11.9% rate. But compared to non-Maori they are younger, have less education, make less use of technology and have less of an export focus. But Maori entrepreneurs exceed non-Maori in perceiving that their product or service will be new and unfamiliar and that there is a limited competition for supplying it.

Manukau Mayor Sir Barry Curtis says “This is great news about our city’s economic movers and shakers. It’s true that big trees from little acorns grow. Entrepeneurs turn new ideas into wealth and jobs.

“Without people having bright ideas and being prepared to take risks in putting them into practice we wouldn’t have an economy, let alone economic growth.

“I congratulate each and every one of our entrepeneurs and hope they persevere through the often-difficult startup period.”

The research found that key factors in developing entrepreneurship in NZ include:

effective and competent government assistance high level of creativity, self sufficiency and personal initiative achieved among pupils in schools openness of the NZ market for new and growing firms positive attitudes towards future opportunities

However, despite our high startup rate as a nation, New Zealand’s new businesses have a poor record in continuing on to become bigger, create wealth and generate large numbers of jobs. As a rule they also often fail to create anything new and instead supply established markets.

The GEM research found a number of reasons for this:

a low sense of urgency and low “ego” among those surveyed

a lack a number of characteristics seen as necessary for expansion and ongoing business success on a large scale a widespread belief that being an entrepreneur is not a desirable career choice lack of respect and status given to successful entrepreneurs

The GEM report is a joint initiative between Babson College in the US and the London Business School. It investigates the relationship between entrepeneurship, economic development and national prosperity. The project began in 1997. New Zealand participated alongside 36 other nations representing 60% of the world’s population and 286 million people who are entrepreneurs.

The full report can be viewed at http://www.unitec.ac.nz/gem.

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