Selling Godzone from afar

It's all very well to critique economic policy from the relative safety of distant shores but can expatriates make a contribution to the country from overseas? Many think they can.

Whether they're recommending New Zealand wine to dinner guests or directly building export markets for Kiwi companies, most expats who responded to a Herald survey conducted through the KEA expat network say they are contributing to the economy from afar.

A "refugee of the Muldoon years" and former student of Canterbury and Victoria universities, Peter Melling runs his own scientific equipment company, Remspec, in Boston.

Melling is funding a research project with a local university, but the scheme has had "mixed success" because of the attitudes of the New Zealand workers that nearly derailed the project.

"Sanity finally prevailed - after we threatened to stop funding - and we now have some degree of accountability, but it was not a pleasant experience," Melling said.

"People need to learn global standards of accountability. Someone who was not a New Zealander would have walked."

Steve Jenkins, helping to run a furniture joint venture in the Binh Duong province of Vietnam, said the company provided jobs for 50 New Zealand employees directly.

"We make a small contribution to the economy, by manufacturing products here in Vietnam and shipping back to New Zealand as well as to other global markets.

"We could not manufacture these products in New Zealand and compete on the international market."

With a successful career in the IT industry, Andy Wilkinson, the Asia-Pacific vice-president and general manager of services company Peregrine Systems, is developing a vineyard and winery as a business sideline.

"Like many expats, I'm determined to have a foothold in a piece of New Zealand that will keep me linked to my heritage and provide an economic return," the Singapore-based Wilkinson said.

Already employing several locals in the venture, he plans to build an export business selling New Zealand wine to the world.

In his day job, he also comes across opportunities to push the Kiwi line.

"The informal network of Kiwi ambassadors on a per capita basis must be the highest in the world," he said.

Alan Eriwata, the vice-president of Beijing-based AustChina Technology, is helping set up a "beach head" in that city with New Zealand Trade and Enterprise for Kiwi companies.

Similar beach heads already exist in Silicon Valley, Britain and Dubai.

California-based film editor Richard Clark chooses to collaborate with other expat Kiwis and share ideas.

"Every time I open my mouth, I make a contribution. Mind you, my accent is somewhere between Wellington and New York these days and neither place fully understands me."

Others have gone as far as making a business out of helping companies succeed on the global stage.

"My wife and I have created a global business in Singapore that enables New Zealanders to more easily set themselves up in foreign markets," said Mikael Aldridge, who has just returned to become a planning director at marketing and communications firm Grey Global Group.

With Lino magazine, distributed throughout Australia, Southeast Asia, Japan, South Africa and Great Britain, Sydney-based publisher Rex Turnbull likes to think he's marketing New Zealand as an attractive destination.

Those employed in high-tech jobs wave the flag abroad but feel they can make only a limited contribution due to the nature of their work.

Sam Tobin, a space scientist at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, feels relatively powerless to help out given New Zealand's limited involvement in the scientific community.

"This could be reversed, but would require the Government and academia to actually look outside of the country and try to get involved in things other than processes that turn milk into something other than milk," he said.

Steve Shirley, a field service engineer working for General Electric in the Netherlands, said the focus should be on high technology and the highly skilled but comparatively low-paid workforce.

"New Zealand cannot compete with India's [low dollar] workforce, but we can compete with Japan, the US and European markets which is where the technology is still developed," he said.

Jessica Macpherson, the Sydney-based national sales manager for Oyster Bay Wines, makes a contribution by selling "lots of Kiwi wines to Aussies".

Others, such as New York-based banker Jo Reardon, send their money home: "I do invest my savings back in New Zealand generally through bonds, property and, to a much lesser extent, the sharemarket."

For many expat Kiwis who have made it overseas in well-paid jobs, there are mixed feelings about returning home.

About half of the people who responded to the Herald's survey said they intended to come home to live. "It would be the lifestyle that I was coming back for," said Leanne Mackee, a senior marketing manager at broadcaster BBC World in London. "Work wouldn't be the deciding factor."

International Paper chief financial officer Chris Liddell, obviously enjoying his Connecticut-based corporate experience, said he would return "eventually".

Shirley expects to return from the Netherlands "sooner rather than later" but laments the fact that his homeland is not as cheap as it was.

"The housing market has grown so much in the recent past that relocating back is difficult when you [consider] that salaries offered don't appear to have kept in step with real inflation."

Between film-editing jobs, Clark travels home but is often put off by the culture he left behind when he set up for business in Los Angeles.

"I return often but get blindsided by those who have never left and their jingoistic attitudes. The America's Cup 'Loyal' campaign was a case in point," he said.

Now ready to start a family, Reardon wants to bring up her children back home, away from the bustle of New York.

"Money isn't everything and the lifestyle choices New Zealand provides [and the fact I want my children to grow up as Kiwis] will certainly outweigh financial factors."

Blair Nelson plans to stay overseas as he puts his newly acquired MBA from Michigan University to use in the business consulting world.

"If I came back now, traditional businesses wouldn't know what to do with me," he said.

"I'd be asked to go to a middle-management role and learn the business for a decade or two until I was old enough to join the old guard."

Despite working in the narrow field of space science, Tobin and his wife who also works in technology, are homeward bound.

"We look forward to stacking shelves in Foodtown," he laughed. "The prime driver for returning is lifestyle. Rightly or wrongly, we see New Zealand as a nice place to grow old in, not somewhere to fulfil our career aspirations."

Luana Payne, a London-based business development manager at Fairfax Business Media, will leave London to return next year to "climb the property ladder" back home.

"I'm not sure how well I will integrate back into the pace of life there so I would be seeking a challenging role as my next career move," she said.

Teacher Rusty Rolf plans to return from China, but doesn't fancy his job prospects.

"I know that, at 58, the chances of me finding a job are pretty slim. Over here in China, I am useful, I know I am doing a good job, and my students and the staff at the university appreciate me. It would be impossible for me to get the same sense of job satisfaction in New Zealand."

Some expats have philosophical differences with the Government and the direction in which it is taking the country.

Melling is dissuaded from returning by what he views as a poorly run health sector. "I was rather shaken by the antics of Pharmac.

"It seems the philosophy of the medical system is third-rate care for all and not the best for all which is what I would have expected from a country running budget surpluses."

A Kiwi financial adviser working for a major merchant bank in Singapore, who wanted to remain anonymous, said the political environment did not favour productive, hard-working members of society. "It is difficult to be positive about returning to New Zealand. The Government spends too much time pandering to those who do not contribute and are, rather, drains on the economy."

Perhaps the feeling of many Kiwi professionals is best summed up by the comments of London-based Mark Weenink, a partner in the banking and finance group at law firm McDermott Will & Emery.

"I think the country is at the cusp of going forward or backwards. I'm not sure the political courage is present in the Government to take some of the hard directional choices that are required."

Home and away

Expats are actively contributing to the economy through business ventures and informal promotion.

Relatively low wages are seen as the biggest barrier to returning home.

The rising dollar and the increasing cost of living is making the country a less attractive place to live.

A healthier lifestyle and bringing up children are the main reasons for returning home.