Rohe arotahinga 4: Ki te whakaaweawe i te nohonga o Tāmaki Makaurau ki te tautoko i te tipuranga hokohoko Focus area 4: Leverage Auckland’s position to support growth in exports

​Auckland has an important role as New Zealand's main connection point for international and domestic markets. We need to use this role to increase exports.

Exporting specialised, distinctive, high-value products at scale will have the greatest impact on Auckland’s prosperity.

Opportunities available in Auckland due to its scale, facilities and diverse population include:

• diverse and more specialised labour markets
• scope for specialised production, which increases trade between firms
• access to international markets which provides more scope for firms to benefit from scale economies
• opportunities to stimulate the development and spread of new ideas, technologies and ways of doing business
• business contacts in migrants' countries of origin
• a variety of specialised cultural and recreation opportunities.

Auckland however still has a primarily inwardly-focused economy driven by consumption, real estate, and domestically-focused services.

The image below shows the top five New Zealand export markets in 2017.

How this can be done

We need to move into creating and exporting a wide range of sustainably developed products, and more knowledge-intensive goods and services based on innovation and productivity growth.

Focusing on a broader mix of exports will mean a wider spread of innovation opportunities, and will require a wider range of skills.

There are a number of emerging and evolving economic sectors including:

• advanced manufacturing
• building and infrastructure
• high technology
• food and beverage
• tertiary education and training
• screen and creative industries
• circular economy.

Encouraging these new sectors will increase the resilience of Auckland's economy and also make New Zealand less vulnerable to fluctuations in commodity prices.

We also need to ensure the ongoing sustainable growth of sectors that are already internationally competitive, as described on the Tripartite Economic Alliance page.

Related information

• Impact of new technology
• The Tripartite Economic Alliance
• The importance of soft skills
• Educational achievement of Auckland's children and young people
• Why lifting productivity is important
• Groups that experience poor education and employment outcomes
• Māori and Pasifika Trades Training programme
• Auckland Plan 2050 - Full print document (PDF 36.6 MB)
• Auckland Plan 2050 - Print document - Opportunity and prosperity (PDF 900 KB).

More information about this outcome