13 - Towards a Closer Partnership: Long-Term Prospects and Challenges — New Zealand's Perspectives

Summary

Professor Gary Hawke's presentation on the long-term prospects and challenges between New Zealand and Southeast Asia encompassed a number of perspectives. As an economic historian, he commenced by providing an outline of economic relations between New Zealand and Southeast Asia. It essentially started as a small thin stream of exports and imports for ASEAN members and subsequently thickened into a tidal flow in the 1990s. In addition to the economic relationship, there was an aid and defence relationship. The economic relationship has evolved substantially and now involves trade, investment and policy dialogue. In the early 80s, New Zealand officials were always engaged in debate about the relative importance of the New Zealand-Southeast Asian relationship. Professor Hawke feels that this focus will shift towards (a) a bilateral relationship between New Zealand and individual ASEAN countries, (b) the relationship between New Zealand and ASEAN, and (c) the relationship between New Zealand and ASEAN and the wider East Asia region and the Asia Pacific region.

The present-day New Zealand and Southeast Asia relationship features certain issues, including tariffs, rules of origin, government procurement services, investment and movement of natural persons. However, Professor Hawke pointed out that diplomats and businessmen involved in the New Zealand- Southeast Asia relationship must be wary of the application of the agreements to specific products and specific markets. He predicts that the current New Zealand-Southeast Asia relationship is going to change in the future due to two reasons: (i) the increasing role of services and (ii) the increasing importance placed on regional trade agreements (RTAs). To the latter point, Professor Hawke underlined Sir Dryden Spring's statement “the importance of ensuring a compatibility of a RTA multilateral system. It is not going to be easy and is going to take a particular mechanism to ensure that we do get a progressive form of relationship in the future.”