A question for my friend and incoming Auckland mayor Phil Goff: How will you lift the city’s economic relationship with China? One in 12 Aucklanders now identifies as Chinese; it is the country’s commercial capital and the gateway for Chinese visitors, students and...
The Government’s “refresh” of its Trade Policy Strategy is both timely and appropriate. Hopefully it will prove substantive as well. The existing strategy coined a generation ago by former Trade Minister Tim Groser, while still an MFAT official, has served New...
This op ed was kindly published by The Spinoff on 16 August 2016. Trade has been described as “war by other means”. That led the US Defence Secretary in peak hyperbole to declare that the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) was as important to him as another aircraft...
In this article I argue for calm when trade issues arise. Some years ago I wrote “when elephants fight, it gets tough on the grass”. That was when the United States under President George W Bush was blocking steel imports from New Zealand and other countries. It...
As Executive Director of the NZ China Council Stephen was honoured to call on Chinese Ambassador Wang Lutong. See a readout of their meeting here.
Stephen was pleased to address a business breakfast organised by the Australian Consulate-General, Austrade and the University of Sydney. The subject was the economic relationship with Australia - here's Stephen's speech: It’s a pleasure to be with you this morning...
Stephen is giving a number of addresses about the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the implications for New Zealand. See here for an address he gave in Nelson to the NZ Institute for International Affairs on 5 April. Other addresses are available on the Tradeworks...
Andrew Little MPLeader of the Labour PartyWELLINGTON Dear Andrew Thank you for clarifying your opposition to the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) on your recent blog post “My thoughts on the TPP” [1]. In the interests of open and respectful debate, I...
In this article Stephen is joined by copyright expert Ken Moon of A J Park to discuss the impact of TPP's provisions on copyright in New Zealand. "The TPP intellectual property provisions, while a complex set of legal commitments, will not result in much change to the...