Celebrating 40 years of relations with ASEAN
AUT hosted and sponsored the first Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) New Zealand Business Council ‘ASEAN Forum’ with a focus on education and celebrating 40 years of dialogue between New Zealand and ASEAN.
ASEAN, with its rapidly emerging middle classes and strong demand for good education, is an AUT and Education New Zealand ‘Tier One’ education target.
AUT Pro Vice-Chancellor International Nigel Hemmington acknowledged this when he addressed the Forum, “ASEAN is core business for AUT, with a large number of our international students coming from all 10 ASEAN countries. The ASEAN nations represent AUT’s third largest education market after China and India.
“Building relationships in these key markets is crucial to creating stability in an international education market that is known to be volatile.”
The Forum was another avenue for building on the relationships forged and formed over the last 40 years of formal engagement between the ASEAN and New Zealand. Attendees were treated to presentations from New Zealand and ASEAN partners about different perspectives on their trade and education relations. The forum was also interactive, with break-out sessions and panel discussions, allowing for the all-important networking to take place throughout the day.
The Minister for Trade the Hon Tim Groser closed the day with a speech focusing on the economic and social progress of the ASEAN nations, the New Zealand Government’s perspective on trade and the future of relations with ASEAN.
“We need to appreciate the significance of the 40th anniversary. Forty years ago the ASEAN nations were afflicted with poverty, human abuses, financial instability, wars and a lack of security. While I acknowledge there are still some remaining structural political problems and there is more to be done, there is no denying that the ASEAN nations have shown astonishing economic growth and extraordinary political progress over that time.”
“Strategically the New Zealand Government of the day made a decision to believe that the ASEAN nations would stabilise, and that project has been a social, economic and political success.”
New Zealand's combined trade with ASEAN, aided by the ASEAN, Australia and New Zealand Free Trade Agreement, exceeds $13 billion per annum and it vies with European Union to be our biggest trading region.
ASEAN contains the 10 important or rapidly emerging markets of Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Philippines, Thailand, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.