The Press reports that flyers titled “Immigration or Invasion” has been distributed in Christchurch by a group called New Zealand Right Wing Resistance.

Some thoughts on the arguments presented:

“If current trends continue, whites will soon be a minority in this country”.

That’s a well-known fact. Not just in New Zealand. Around the world white people are having fewer kids. So it’s no surprise that the proportion of whites will continue to dwindle.

I imagine similar conversations happening in Christchurch in the 1800s along the lines of ”If current trends continue, Maori will soon be a minority in this country”.

“Uncivilised immigrants are turning New Zealand into a third world slum. They come to take advantage of our welfare systems, they take our already scarce jobs, they disrespect our culture and have no interest in the wellbeing of our once great nation.”

These “uncivilised immigrants” are the very people propping up the New Zealand economy. Globally, it’s well acknowledged that immigrants give more than they take as a whole. If immigrants uproot their lives in order to move their family to New Zealand, don’t you think perhaps they may want to contribute towards their adopted home, in order for a brighter future for the kids? It’s preposterous to suggest immigrants come to New Zealand to sabotage this country so that their kids have no future here.

Some of us “uncivilised immigrants” take it a step further; creating jobs, paying taxes, paying people who pay taxes, buying from local suppliers etc.

Hon Jonathan Coleman, Minister of Immigration, commenting on the Department of Labour research on the economic impact of immigrants to New Zealand, says: ”Without current levels of inward migration, both our population base and economy would shrink dramatically. By 2021, our population would drop by 9.6 per cent and our GDP would drop by 11.3 percent. There would be a 10.9 percent drop in the available labour force and the export sector would be savaged with volumes dropping by 12.9 percent.

“What this research tells us is that immigration contributes significantly to every New Zealander’s per capita income”.

“They bring crime, spread previously foreign diseases inter-breed with our people, and are increasingly taking over our schools, putting our own children at a disadvantage.”

Anyone who has ever attended a school prize-giving ceremony in any urban New Zealand town will see that there is a disproportionate number of Asian immigrant kids winning prizes. If that is what is meant by “taking over our schools” I’m not sure if that’s a bad thing. After all, the people complaining are supposedly the the very people who champion meritocracy and complain about affirmative action for Maori.  It’s no secret. The reason immigrant kids are “taking over our schools” is simply because they work harder, in spite of English often not being their first language, and in spite of many having come from humble family backgrounds. Encouraging people to succeed in spite of adversity is supposedly a very Kiwi value. So I’ve heard.

“Don’t allow yourself to be misled by this corrupt financially useless, multiculturalist, perverted Government! Stop sitting back on the sideline, DO SOMETHING for your people and your nation! Send them home and close the borders!

Ahh… when all arguments fail…there’s always the standard line: Ching Chong, go home.

I suppose there’s only a very small minority who share the sentiments of this white supremacist group. What’s worrying however is the number of people who have voiced their support for this group in the comments section of The Press article.

At Euroasia, our corporate vision has always been about “connecting people across cultures”. Though we are in the business of providing foreign language courses for Kiwis, in reality we do more than that. We help New Zealanders better understand people from other cultures, and vice-versa. 9 times out of 10, misunderstanding occurs because of a lack of communication between parties, and unchallenged misconceptions about the other party. We are now offering our language courses in Christchurch. Hopefully we can play a small role in bridging the gap between immigrants and locals in Christchurch.

INVASION?

or

INVESTMENT?

Posted via email from Euroasia

Today I received a package in the mail – with a brand new t-shirt from our email marketing provider, Mailchimp. It’s a Christmas gift that they sent out from their Austin, Texas HQ to clients all over the world. I must be one of a few people in New Zealand who received this package. The guy putting the package together might have wondered to himself where New Zealand was. Maybe off the coast of Alaska.

Pretty cool t-shirt don’t you think? This is quite a smart way to get people talking about Mailchimp. So for a couple of bucks, they’ve managed to get me to blog about this I wonder if we send out free Euroasia t-shirts to clients it will produce the same effect. Well, maybe not with a monkey on the front.

Euroasia has been using Mailchimp since last year to manage our email marketing campaigns. We pay USD30/month (for 2500 subscribers or less). We’re about 100 short of the upper limit, after which we’ll have to pay USD50/month for up to 5000 subscribers. With the high Kiwi dollar, it’s pretty worth it. Especially seeing the features offered are far superior to what we had previously with our open-source email management software.

There are standard things like Analytics integration, subscriber activity reports, social media integration etc. Even not-so-standard things like the ability to add users on the fly using the Mailchimp app on my iPhone, or to view reports on the go.

For those with a smaller subscriber base, Mailchimp offers a free email marketing plan: store up to 1,000 subscribers and send up to 6,000 emails a month. With no expiring trials, hidden charges or sneaky contracts. They won’t even ask for a credit card. All for ZERO dollars. You might be thinking there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Well, Mailchimp employs what’s known as a freemium model. In a September 2010 blog entry, they explain how it all works, and how they’re making a lot more money by offering free plans. They also describe their experience starting the Mailchimp business in the wake of the dot-com bust, and why it makes sense starting up a business in a bad economy (useful reading for all of you still thinking about whether to get started on the business idea you’ve been thinking about).

So what are you waiting for? If you’ve been using an underwhelming product to manage your email newsletters, the New Year is the time to consider Mailchimp.

Posted via email from Euroasia

Marketing guru Seth Godin showcased Ibex as an example of what a good website should look like in his blog today. Ibex is a Vermont, USA-based company that sells outdoor clothing. Their long sleeve tops for men average about USD100 each. Not exactly cheap, but not over-the-top expensive either. Seth Godin outlines five things that make Ibex successful online:

No doubt with the advent of online commerce anyone can sell anything online. As you go through the list, it’s apparent this is not rocket science. But it’s a wonder how few businesses get the basics right. This got me thinking about the missed potential for New Zealand firms. New Zealand is blessed with some of the most amazing natural resources in the world, superior products including honey, wool, seafood, dairy etc.

Almost all of the Ibex products I came across use the same raw ingredient: New Zealand merino wool.

A woolies zip t-neck (USD72) uses 18.5 micron New Zealand Merino lightweight rib; 150 g/m2. Not sure what the raw cost is, but probably not more than USD2 given the low price of raw processed wool. So basically of the USD72 retail price, maybe USD2 accrues to New Zealand wool producers and processors COMBINED, or 3% of the retail price.

OK, this may not be surprising to some people who already understand that it doesn’t matter if you have the best product in the world; if you can’t sell then you’re finished. However, my bet is the average New Zealander probably doesn’t realise the extent to which we’re “giving away” business. Coming back to the official website of New Zealand merino wool, the organisation tasked with marketing New Zealand merino wool globally.   The homepage is not particularly impressive, and people clicking on the “customer gateway” (curious terminology- maybe they asked the resident IT geek to write this) get this “under construction” message. I don’t get these messages. If you don’t have a website, just wait until you have one. Why put up an “under construction” message?

Seeing this is the top site that appears on Google whenever anyone searches for “NZ merino wool” I’m not sure it’s a good look for foreign visitors researching NZ merino wool.

The 1992 Arthur D Little (American management consultancy) report quoted on the “About Us” page says:

New Zealand merino is unequivocally the best in the world and needs to be taken to the market in a manner which is distinctly different from the rest of the clip.

Sounds good. Hope there has been some progress in the 19 years since that report was published.

Posted via email from Euroasia

We had the annual Euroasia Christmas party late this year (11 Dec 09). We had a decent turnout of around 80 clients and friends of Euroasia, which is OK seeing we clashed with many other corporate parties. File note: next year we definitely have to do this the first week of Dec, perhaps even late-Nov.  As you can see, those who managed to make it had a great time.

We didn’t do any Christmas carols in  Spanish, French, German, Chinese and Japanese like we did last year… but our team did organise some cool games. It was also a great opportunity for me to thank all our clients for their unwavering support to us over the past year. Dr John Reynolds spoke eloquently in 3 languages about his language learning experience at Euroasia.

Ken with Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng and fellow businessmen from Australia..

A few months ago, I accepted an invitation to speak at the World Chinese Economic Forum in November and held in Kuala Lumpur (which happens to be my hometown).   I’m really glad I went, as I managed to meet a number of very interesting people.  At my session, I talked about how overseas Chinese can assist businesspeople from Western nations, including New Zealand, to access new markets in Asia generally and China specifically. I provided examples of enterprising Chinese businesspeople facilitating trade opportunities. In the past, New Zealand chicken producers had to spend money to dispose of chicken parts like chicken feet (that Westerners don’t eat, but Chinese love). Through the intervention of Chinese traders, NZ chicken producers have not only saved money from having to dispose of these chicken parts, but are now profiting from the sales of these parts. There are plenty of business opportunities in China that New Zealanders are missing out on because of the DIY mindset. A far superior approach is to collaborate with Asians who live in NZ and have an entrenched knowledge of the language and culture in the target market.   I’m hoping to devote more time and energy to work on these Asia Bridge initiatives in 2010.

At the Forum, I managed to have a chat with the Penang Chief Minister, Lim Guan Eng. When he found out that I lived in NZ,  he said “you Kiwis qualified for the world cup”, referring to news that New Zealand qualified for the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa and demonstrating his knowledge of New Zealand. I had to break it to him that NZ also qualified for the Hockey World Cup, beating Malaysia the day before the forum.

Ken with PM John Key

Earlier this month, I attended the annual APEC Advisory Business Council (ABAC) dinner, where the PM briefs members of the business community on what happened at APEC. This year, there’s lots to say about the economy and the PM has just arrived back from the East Asia Summit, Malaysia-NZ FTA, CHOGM, and about to go to Copenhagen.

I have previously blogged about this but one funny anecdote worth sharing is from the Q%A where a guy asked a serious question “If we want to catch Australia why not just merge with them?” The PM’s response: I just got back from CHOGM where Australian PM Kevin Rudd asked me the same question. My response was I’m too busy running New Zealand to run Australia as well. This guy can be very funny.  I do think John Key is more in touch with the masses than Helen Clark; and has a way with both CEOs  as well as joe public. Perhaps this explains his 80% favourability rating throughout a very difficult year.

Mock up of Euroasia's new website to be launched in 2010

In the new year, you will see the launch of Euroasia’s new website and enrolment system, which we have spent the last 2 months working on. Some people have asked us why we want to spend money on this, especially seeing this is a particularly difficult time. My response is that in order to maintain Euroasia’s position as a leading provider of foreign language courses and cross-cultural services, we have to keep investing in the business, and to keep improving our service offering, especially when times are bad. Recessions don’t last forever, and I’m optimistic that 2010 will be a spectacular year for Euroasia. As it stands, our forward bookings for 2010 are already way ahead of this time last year.

Over the next two weeks, I will spend some time hopefully relaxing and reflecting on the past year. If you’re like me, and need some help with the reflection process, I’ve found this guide pretty helpful. Ask yourself 20 questions that cover all facets of life, not just material prosperity.

Last Christmas, we produced a video compilation of Euroasia staff bringing Christmas and New Year greetings in their native languages. I hope you don’t mind me recycling (seeing it’s in vogue now) this message. Once again we wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Ken with PM John Key

The PM talked about 3 key issues:

1) Global interconnectedness. Synchronised recession is illustrative of this. Deep recessions will become more common as economies become more interdependent.

2) Global imbalances.  PM cited a savings imbalance, with the West being funded by the East. He thinks the yuan will have to appreciate (given his background as Head of FX for Merrill Lynch, I was thinking whether to start hoarding some yuan) . The major issue is US consumers won’t spend. The Americans are looking for 20m jobs (7m unemployed plus 13m coming into workforce).

3) Climate change. Unless the big boys (US, China etc) are involved, we can’t change things. It is more of a problem than people think, and will hit faster and with more severity.As the bulk of energy (70%) in NZ already come from renewable sources, and 50% of emissions is from agriculture, addressing this will be a big challenge.

The Q&A was pretty fascinating. One guy asked a serious question “If we want to catch Australia why not just merge with them?” The PM’s response: I just got back from CHOGM where Australian PM Kevin Rudd asked me the same question. My response was I’m too busy running New Zealand to run Australia as well. This guy can be very funny.  I do think John Key is more in touch with the masses than Helen Clark; and has a way with both CEOs  as well as joe public. Perhaps this explains his 80% favourability rating throughout a very difficult year.

Signing of Malaysia NZ FTA; (L-R) Tim Groser, John Key, Najib, Mustapa

Monday 26 October 2009 was a historic day for Malaysia – New Zealand relations. 10 years of trade negotiations culminated in the official signing of the Malaysia New Zealand Free Trade Agreement. A group of 45 businesspeople from New Zealand, coupled with another 15 or so New Zealanders residing in Malaysia accompanied Prime Minister John Key to Malaysia for this historic event. I had the privelege of joining the NZ delegation to Kuala Lumpur. The irony is I am Malaysian and KL is my hometown, and it felt a little weird being on the other side. Nevertheless it was an amazing experience being part of this momentous occasion.

Free Trade Agreements are highly beneficial for New Zealand. Relatively speaking, New Zealand is already a very free country, with few tariffs and trade barriers, making it very easy for foreign businesses to do business in NZ. However, the same is not true for most other nations.

Pg 2 of The Star on Malaysia NZ FTA

Many countries impose significant tariffs on imported goods, and have convoluted non-tariff barriers designed to protect domestic industries from foreign competition.  This is why it is easy for NZ to sign up to a free trade agreement because these agreements most definitely result in net gains for NZ businesses. The real difficulty is in convincing foreign nations to give up long standing tariffs.  The Kiwi trade negotiators have very few bargaining chips to play with, a key reason why I have a lot of respect for these guys.

This is why I’m unhappy with the negative people who complain that FTAs are useless and are merely tools for select few businesses to make more money. The reality for exporters is that because of this FTA, tariffs for kiwifruit exports to Malaysia will go from 15% to 0%. Fonterra will see liquid milk quotas increasing significantly to 2.1m litres p.a., and a reduction of the  20% inquota tariff for liquid milk to 0%. Considering Fonterra’s market share in Malaysia for the adult milk category is 77% and 80% in prenatal dairy products, this is a huge win.

PM's motorcade with police outriders, view from coach I was in

Education institutions can secure 70% shareholding (up from 49% currently) in Malaysian-domiciled joint ventures by 2015.  Fran O’Sullivan (who was in Malaysia with the trade delegation) discusses benefits for NZ education providers in her 28 October editorial “Malaysia the key to unlock other doors“.

Ultimately, the Malaysia NZ FTA is all about enhancing already strong and long enduring ties between the two nations. As politics and economics are so intertwined, the partnership of two nations via the FTA symbolises the mutual commitment of both parties.

As I have never been on a New Zealand trade delegation signing an FTA, this trip was a real eye-opener for me. NZTE and MFAT did a great job putting the programme together. We certainly enjoyed the ride in the PM’s motorcade. The 60-strong trade delegation were put in two coaches, behind the PM’s car and security detail (probably half the cars carried security personnel).  I sat behind the bus driver and could see the speedo hitting the top speed of 120 kmh, the driver struggling to keep up .

invite from Malaysian Prime Minister

Knowing KL traffic, it’s amazing to see the motorways cleared, with the entourage going from KL to Shah Alam in record time. They even sent an ambulance along to accompany the motorcade. My guess is this is because they don’t want any delay in despatching medical assistance should anything happen to visiting heads of state. We managed to visit the new Datacom office in Bandar Utama and the new Fonterra yoghurt factory in Shah Alam, had lunch and got back to KL Hilton within 4 or 5 hours. Under normal traffic conditions,  driving time alone would already take that long. The other bonus for me personally is to have received a dinner invitation from the Malaysian Prime Minister (extended to all visiting New Zealand delegates).  Had I stayed on in Malaysia and not moved to NZ, I don’t know when I would receive a dinner invite from the Malaysian PM’s office.  The other interesting irony is that I received a New Zealand Prime Ministerial invite before the Malaysian one (18 months ago, to celebrate the signing of the China NZ FTA).

NZ trade delegation to Malaysia, with members of Malaysia NZ Business Council

Malaysia and New Zealand have strong historic links dating back to the 1940s with New Zealand soldiers helping Malaya fight the communists, and students from Malaysia arriving in New Zealand in the 1950s and 60s under the Colombo Plan.

Several New Zealand Army officers served in Malaya while on secondment with British units from 1949. New Zealand became more directly involved in the Malayan Emergency operations in 1955, following its decision to contribute forces to the British Commonwealth Far East Strategic Reserve.  In total, 1300 New Zealanders served as part of a Commonwealth force including army, air force and navy.

The Colombo Plan was a plan for Cooperative Economic Development of South and South East Asia and was conceived at a meeting of Commonwealth Foreign Ministers held in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in January 1950. All aid was given on a bi-lateral basis and the negotiations were conducted between the donor and the receiving government. No conditions or strings were attached to any aid provided and there was no expectation of a return by the donor country.

Petronas Twin Towers

More than 300,000 recipients benefited from this scholarship during the period 1951-1989. Scholars were trained in Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and United Kingdom.  Many New Zealand graduates are now in senior and influential positions within the government and private sectors in Malaysia.

During the KL trip, I took  two of the New Zealand delegates to the Petronas Twin Towers. On the way there, we stopped at the mosque behind KLCC as they were fascinated with the architecture. It was almost midnight, and we bumped into 3 security guards at the mosque. They were very friendly and asked me in Bahasa (Malay language) where the guests are from. I said New Zealand. They immediately smiled and were very friendly, even asking if we wanted to take photos inside the mosque.  They knew the All Blacks (it would be difficult to find one Malaysian who doesn’t recognise this most famous of Kiwi brands), and one of them mentioned Jonah Lomu. My Kiwi friends were most impressed with the Malaysians they have met, and were very keen to explore what can be done in Malaysia. This is why I am optimistic that Malaysia New Zealand relations will go from strength to strength.