Dean Butchers spoke to us about his role as the General Manager of Business Attractions and Investment within ATEED(an Auckland Council controlled organisation). Primarily looking at economic development strategy, based around the Auckland Plan i.e. attracting business and investment. The Wynyard Quarter is already attracting a huge commercial interest, as well as visitors. As at 2015 there was $100Bn invested in NZ, of which surprisingly 52% was from Australia, and only 6% from China.
Auckland is expected to grow from 1.6M people to 2M by 2031 which is a growth rate of 2.9% per annum. Some interesting facts about Auckland include -
- 30% of Auckland's have a bachelor degree or higher
- 30% speak 2 or more languages
- Auckland benchmarks first or second amongst 20 of the worlds best cities
Auckland has a c competitive advantage in areas of technology, commercial services, food & beverage, screen(AR/VR), and advanced manufacturing. ATEED had been working for 5 years with the recently announced introduction of the Testa electric cars.
Screen is also growing in Auckland - the set from the recent film Meg was built in West Auckland, and has one of the largest tanks that will become available to attract even more films to Auckland. There are already 5 or 6 films per year being shot now, which brings in around $800M.
Further details can be found on aucklandnz.com/invest
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