Economics, Politics and Public Policy in East Asia and the Pacific
Author: Gary Hawke, NZIER
The best headline among the usual profusion of journalistic reviews of New Zealand in 2012 is ‘Trivial Pursuits: The big news of the year is a margin-of-error-scale shift in the polls’.
Even in this context foreign affairs played little role in political commentary
Author: Robert Ayson, Victoria University of Wellington
Visitors to New Zealand during the uneventful general election in November 2011, which returned John Key’s National Party to office, would be forgiven for thinking things were running smoothly.
This was helped by the fact that a few weeks earlier, New Zealanders gained the greatest prize they could wish for. This was not a Nobel Prize for their leading scientists; nor a temporary seat on the UN Security Council, which Mr Key’s government wants to secure; nor the competent hosting of the Pacific Islands Forum in Auckland, which came and went without much trace. Read more…
Author: Corey Wallace, University of Auckland
Public debate surrounding Japan’s proposed entry into the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) remains as heated and confused as ever.
The rhetoric is far-ranging: while some maintain that Japan risks being permanently left behind economically should it fail to negotiate entry into the TPP, others suggest that Japan’s government is agreeing to effectively cede sovereignty and sacrifice its agricultural sector for the sake of diplomatic cordiality. No one really knows what the TPP will mean for Japan, but little recognition is given to this fact. Read more…
Author: Vikas Kumar, Bangalore
Threatened by geographic and demographic factors, the sovereignty of Oceania’s microstates has been precarious from their inception.
Each of these states has a small but highly diverse population spread over a very large area — their exclusive economic zones (EEZ) are comparable in size to EEZs of some of the world’s largest countries. Read more…
Author: Bill Kaye-Blake, NZIER
Statistics New Zealand recently announced that New Zealand posted 0.2 per cent growth in the fourth quarter of 2010, narrowly avoiding a double-dip recession.
Forecasts for 2011 are scarcely better: the IMF has lowered its forecast growth for the year to 1 per cent, while the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) is forecasting only 0.3 per cent growth. Read more…
Author: Mukul G. Asher, NUS, and Rahul Sen, AUT
As part of a broader objective of deeper economic integration with Asia, New Zealand embarked last year on negotiating a preferential trade agreement (PTA) with India, one of the rapidly growing emerging markets in Asia.
Three rounds of negotiations have now been completed, with the fourth round of negotiations scheduled in New Delhi this month. Read more…
Author: Gary Hawke, NZIER
The prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand met earlier this month. Former prime minister Rudd never quite completed a visit to New Zealand. Julia Gillard was a substitute on one occasion and another was disrupted by the party coup which coincided with his last attempt.
The main tangible deliverable outcome from the summit was no more than an increase in the limit for Australian investment in New Zealand and New Zealand investment in Australia, without satisfying extra requirements for overseas investment. This is hardly a major achievement. Read more…