Business infrastructure
The New Zealand Advantage
New Zealand is an export nation connected locally and globally by efficient technology and logistics.
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Transport and logistics
New Zealand has extensive road and rail transport systems, and effective inter-island links. Over 30 global and regional shipping lines serve our privately-run, deep-water ports at internationally-competitive stevedoring costs.
Most major international airlines serve international airports in seven urban centres across the country.
Sophisticated telecommunications
New Zealand’s telecommunications infrastructure includes five international submarine cable systems and four onshore mobile networks. The Southern Cross cable alone delivers 240 Gbit/s of fully-protected bandwidth to the United States mainland, Hawaii, Australia and Fiji. As demand increases capacity can be doubled to 480Gbit/s.
Energy supply
New Zealand's overall energy self-sufficiency is around 90 percent, with coal exports balancing dependency on imported oil. Environmentally-friendly, cost-effective hydroelectricity and wind farms are increasingly supplementing natural gas for energy generation.
Total annual energy supply is projected to grow at 1.1 percent per annum between 2000 and 2025. Growth will be dominated by a 3.5 percent per annum increase in geothermal energy generation, and a 17 percent per annum growth in wind power production.
Research and development
Private-sector research and development accounts for nearly 40 percent of all New Zealand research and development expenditure. Venture incubators and research clusters around the country also maximise information and technology exchanges.
New Zealand also has a rich track-record of commercially successful products and solutions developed through government-funded research organisations and business / university partnerships.
Nine Crown Research Institutes (CRIs), each with several laboratory sites around the country, produce world-leading public research.
University research is strongly geared towards commercial applications. This focus has already produced a series of successful joint ventures, equity holdings in spin-off companies, and licensing of discoveries like self-regenerating carbon scrubbers for fuel cells and nuclear magnetic resonance technology.
Key infrastructure facts
» Ranked 16th most globalised country out of 72 surveyed in the AT Kearney / Foreign Policy Globalisation Index, 2007.
» Efficient banking sector ranked 23rd worldwide (World Competitiveness Yearbook, 2010).
» Quality of air infrastructure ranked 21st worldwide, similar in ranking to Japan, the US and Thailand (World Competitiveness Yearbook, 2010).
» Ranked 9th worldwide in number of internet users per capita (Global Competitiveness Yearbook, 2010).
