Finance Minister Bill English and Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce have today launched the first Business Growth Agenda progress report on Government actions to boost New Zealand exports.

The Building Export Markets report confirms the Government's target to increase the contribution of exports to the economy from 30 per cent to 40 per cent of GDP by 2025.

Bill says this is a challenging target and achieving it will require a concerted effort by New Zealand over many years. It will also require the continued development of new and expanding export markets.

'It is only through exporting that New Zealand, with a small domestic market, can deliver the growth and productivity required to enhance the wealth of our country and create more and higher paying jobs.

'Committing to this ambitious goal means the Government will stay focused on supporting firms to grow their exports.

'Setting that target flows through to other areas of the Business Growth Agenda, such as accessing the level of capital investment needed to achieve it, and ensuring we manage our resource base to provide opportunities for business growth, while mitigating the environmental risks.”

Steven says the report highlights the significant shift in economic power from the West to East that is expected to occur over the next 20 years.

'Half a billion people in Asia earn what we call ‘middle incomes'. By 2020 that will treble to 1.7 billion. And by 2030, 3.2 billion middle income people will live in Asia.

'These people are very interested in the sort of goods and services New Zealand is able to provide.

'Asia represents a massive growth opportunity for our country. The only question for us is what are we prepared to do to take up that opportunity.”

The Building Export Markets progress report is the first of six reports on the Government's Business Growth Agenda.

Others will address innovation, skills, capital markets, infrastructure and resources.

The reports lay out the work programme government agencies are implementing.

'The reports are a way of communicating to stakeholders, particularly the business community, what programmes the Government is working on, and seeking their feedback as to what to speed up, what to slow down, and what else needs doing,” says Steven.

Actions contained in the report include improving access to international markets, making it easier to trade from New Zealand, helping businesses internationalise, increasing value from tourism and high-tech manufacturing, growing international education, and strengthening high value manufacturing and services exports.

'This first report is important, as it lays out the challenge for achieving growth - which is about being much more closely linked into the rest of the world, and taking advantage of our opportunities.

'While the world is going through tough times, the growth in Asian incomes will occur over the next 20 years. So there will be job growth. New Zealand's challenge is to ensure it occurs in New Zealand, not in Australia, or somewhere else.”

The report is available at: www.mbie.govt.nz/what-we-do/business-growth-agenda/export-markets

Source: Office of Steven Joyce and Bill English.