New Zealand and South East Asia

来源：http://www.mfat.govt.nz/Foreign-Relations/Asia/2-South-East-Asia.php#sea     发布时间：2013-02-11

Many of New Zealand’s relationships with South East Asian countries were formed after the Second World War through the education-focused Colombo Plan and defence connections. Today, the linkages are much more wide-ranging and include not only education and defence but also science and technology, tourism and agricultural cooperation, as well as the people-to-people bonds forged by migration and tourism.

Trade and economic links With South East Asia are important. The region contains three of our top 10 trading partners (Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand Indonesia are sixth, ninth and tenth fifth, seventh and tenth respectively) and accounts for around around 11 percent 9.5% of our merchandise exports (NZ $4.4 billion) and 16 percent 15% of imports (NZ $6.7 billion). Our total trade with these countries ($11.1 billion) is now not far behind our total trade with the European Union ($12 billion). Source: Statistics New Zealand, for year ending June 2011.

New Zealand and South East Asia are natural and complementary trading partners. Current exports are dominated by primary produce (dairy products, meat), and imports are primarily of oil and manufactured goods (machinery, electronics). There are opportunities to diversify this trade however, particularly in New Zealand exports of value added food and beverage products and niche manufactures.

New Zealand became a ‘dialogue partner’ of ASEAN in 1974. We also work closely with South East Asian countries in groupings such as APEC, the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the East Asia Summit (EAS) and the United Nations.