Speech at the opening of the New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre

Speaker: Professor Pat Walsh, Vice Chancellor of Victoria University of Wellington

Date: 14 April, 2009

Location: Hunter Building, Victoria University of Wellington

Distinguished guests, academics, ladies and gentlemen, tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa. Good morning everyone. I’m Professor Pat Walsh, Vice-Chancellor of Victoria University of Wellington and it is my pleasure to welcome you today.

I know several of you have travelled a long way to be here, and I thank you for this. I also want to extend a special welcome to the Associate Minister for Tertiary Education, the Hon Dr Wayne Mapp, and the Minister of Trade, the Hon Tim Groser.

I believe that today we stand on the edge of something very exciting and positive for both New Zealand and China. It is a pleasure to host you at the launch of the New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre.

Along with our colleagues at the New Zealand Tertiary Education Commission, the Auckland University of Technology and the Universities of Otago and Canterbury, we should rightly be proud of what we have achieved in creating the Centre.

Universities pride themselves on research excellence. We are leaders in the acquisition and sharing of knowledge, and in doing so make a difference not only to New Zealand but also to the wider global community.

Carrying out effective and challenging research is also a key role of any University. In opening the Centre today, we are indeed fulfilling one of our compelling obligations to help foster collaborative, critical and independent thinking.

A glance at the research previously undertaken by New Zealand universities into China would suggest that this has tended to focus largely on the language and history of this vast nation.

With the Centre, however, we are able to turn the spotlight onto such contemporary issues as the Chinese political economy, its marketing and business management, as well as the legal framework for business in China. Having a national, collaborative platform for such China-related research will take us into new and largely uncharted areas, which should have far-reaching impacts for New Zealand-China relations across the board.

There’s no denying the importance of China not only to New Zealand but also to the global economy. China’s inexorable rise as a global economic powerhouse in the 21st Century has profound implications for all of us.

You will know that in October 2008, New Zealand was the first developed country to enter into a free trade agreement with China. This landmark agreement was the culmination of three years of intensive negotiation. But securing preferential access to the world’s fastest growing major economy – and our fourth largest trading partner - has the potential to deliver significant gains to both New Zealand and Chinese exporters.

First, however, we need to understand how China ticks, and how its commercial, legal and economic sectors operate. The Centre aims to help us do that, by greatly enhancing capability building and knowledge sharing between the business community, tertiary institutions and public sector organisations in New Zealand to allow effective engagement in China.

A critical focus of the Centre will, therefore, be on supporting research into the strategic benefits of the New Zealand-China Free Trade Agreement to both nations, as well as on the entrepreneurial and innovative practices of foreign businesses in the Chinese market.

Projects on issues such as strategy, organisational management, branding, innovation, trade barriers and legal issues will also be of paramount importance to the Centre.

Other primary research activities are likely to include joint research projects, a central repository of information on China, staff and student exchanges and access to scholarship and research funding.

It is always a pleasure to share and collaborate with other countries. We are keen to enhance relations between New Zealand and China and I am pleased to say that the Centre will provide us with ample opportunities to do so.

Thank you once again for coming today – and I trust you will enjoy the 2009 China Symposium and the Wellington Conference on Contemporary China, both of which are taking place today.

It now gives me great pleasure to hand over to the Hon Dr Wayne Mapp.