Belt and Road comes to Marlborough

The NZ China Council’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) road show arrived in Blenheim on 3 October. The event was co-hosted by the Marlborough Research Centre, the Marlborough District Council and the Marlborough-Ningxia Sister City Committee and was attended by over 50 representatives from business and the community.  Our thanks to Cathie Bell, at Korimako Communications, a member of the Sister City Committee for her work in organising this visit.

Talking about the need to leverage BRI, Executive Director Stephen Jacobi had three pieces of advice for the audience: “ Inform yourself about BRI – as we are doing today. Ask your Chinese contacts whether they see scope for leveraging projects under a BRI framework. Talk with your sector organisation, business association or local enterprise agency about how BRI could be useful to their plans for China.”

In addition to presenting our BRI report, Stephen briefly introduced one of our other reports: “Perceptions of China Monitor – Survey 2018”, which aimed to find out what Kiwis really thought about the relationship with China, as we continue to build our capacity as a nation to understand and interact with China.

A copy of Stephen’s speech is attached.