If you missed Great South's Asia Market development manager Ella Zhang's talk on the importance of China to New Zealand's economy and opportunities for Southland here's a quick recap.
Caption: Ella Zhang speaking at the Invercargill Rotary Club meeting on October 19, 2021.
It's fair to say Ella Zhang held members' attention as she explained the big drivers in the Asian economy, the scale of difference to New Zealand and the importance of opportunities and challenges arising in the future.
Zhang joined Great South in October 2020 and her role is to lead development of business opportunities across export, investment and tourism sectors in Asia.
Some of her key notes included:
- Shipping containers costs increasing
- Online shopping is driving demand
- The Asia domestic tourism market has recovered rapidly
Zhang also outlined some of the social changes that are having an impact on Chinese culture and its economy. Notably the change in the one-child policy. In 2016, China changed its policy on children and announced it will allow couples to have up to three children. The reason behind this is because there had abeen a steep decline in birth rates.
For more information on the policy change read this collection of links:
- China's major policy shift: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57303592
- Will parents embrace the change? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/02/china-population-control-two-child-policy
Zhang also outlined some of the major companies that are having an impact on how economic transactions take place.
What is wechat?
Wechat is a social messaging app that allows people to share video, texts, calls and messaging. It is very popular in China and has about a billion users. It was launched in 2011 and is owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent. Notably Facebook is banned in China, so this is a sort of alternative for social messaging. However, it's greatest reach comes for e-commerce where people use mini-programs to pay for items without having to leave the messaging app. In 2020 wechat facilitated about US$250 billion e-commerce transactions.
Read more here:
Understanding wechat: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/what-is-wechat?r=US&IR=T
The other company Zhang talked about was the Alibaba Group, a Chinese multinational technology company that revolves around e-commerce, retail, internet and technology. It was created in 1999. It specialises in consumer-to-consumer, business-to-consumer and business-to-business sales using web portals.
For a comprehensive overview of the group go to https://www.alibabagroup.com/en/global/home
For more resources of understanding China and it's impact on the global economy and markets head to these sources. This is by no means an extensive list and members should seek out further resources available on the internet:
- Asia New Zealand Foundation: https://www.asianz.org.nz/
- Key Facts on New Zealand-China trade: https://www.mfat.govt.nz/br/trade/free-trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements-in-force/nz-china-free-trade-agreement/key-facts-on-new-zealand-china-trade/#:~:text=China%20is%20New%20Zealand's%20largest,New%20Zealand%20exports%20to%20China.
- China's importance to regional NZ: https://www.infometrics.co.nz/assessing-chinas-importance-regional-new-zealand/