Official Opening of New Sharp Business Centre

Monday 23 August 2004

Greetings and welcome to New Zealand's second largest city. I note that you have already opened business centres in that Babylon beyond the Bombay Hills, also known as Auckland and also in Wellington, home of that tribe of paper producers the Iwi Sir Humphrey. My question is, what took you so long?

Christchurch City Council took the pledge this term to become the most business friendly council in New Zealand. We meant it. We are a trading city that unlike other major New Zealand cities, that feed off themselves is directly engaged with the global marketplace.

We are an exporting city that exports products from both the old and new economies. We do it well and we do it with an increasingly diverse range of products. We are the only New Zealand city that can lay claim to being a serious player in the new emergent knowledge economy.

We are the hub for high-tech development and manufacturing in New Zealand. We have about 50 per cent more high-tech workers than in Auckland. The drawcard for these gold collar workers, and others, is the unique Christchurch lifestyle.

We enjoy what is almost instant access to natural gems like beaches, rivers, mountains and the recreational fun that goes with that access.

We have invested in building our own natural capital up. As I said to the APEC delegation a year or two back, we are maybe the only developed city in the world that is re-building some of our swamp areas. We have opened up our rivers and streams to public support for replanting programmes that are drawing back native bird life to within our city limits.

We are busy having a debate just now about how to shape our growth and success so it meets the needs of this and future generations. We have a unique brand that we all want to not only preserve, but enhance.

Our social cohesion and lack of major sectoral debates is one of our other great strengths as a city. We are in other words a prosperous city in every sense of the word. My goal is to keep us there by backing the moves that will help us move towards becoming a high wage, high skill economy that is sustainable and healthy.