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New Zealand's relationship with Southeast Asia is becoming harder to define simply in terms of trade.
That was clear at Tuesday's ASEAN Business Forum at Auckland's Northern Club, organised by the ASEAN Business Council, where ministers, entrepreneurs and business leaders returned to a broader question: how does New Zealand build deeper, more meaningful economic ties with a region that is becoming increasingly important to its future?
The answer was not just about tariffs, investment or trade figures. It was about the people, relationships and networks that make those economic connections possible.
Trade relationships are often discussed through the lens of statistics and market access. Yet the reality on the ground is far more human. It is a New Zealand business owner searching for a trusted partner in an unfamiliar market, or an entrepreneur in Southeast Asia deciding whether a new relationship is worth the risk. Success is rarely built on agreements alone; it depends on trust, local knowledge and relationships that take time to develop. Throughout the Forum, speakers returned repeatedly to this point, highlighting the gap between the economic narrative and the realities of doing business across ASEAN.
A Relationship Built Over Five Decades
Opening the Forum, Trade Minister Todd McClay pointed to a relationship that has been five decades in the making. What began with diplomatic engagement has evolved into a substantial economic partnership, anchored by New Zealand’s Free Trade Agreements with ASEAN and formalised further through the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.
Today, two-way trade between New Zealand and the ASEAN bloc sits at approximately NZ$30 billion. But that figure represents more than goods moving across borders. Behind it are decades of institution-building, negotiation and trust, much of which happens quietly, and is rarely visible to the people whose daily lives and businesses depend on it.
That history matters, particularly because of where the relationship is heading. Speakers throughout the day pointed to the same strategic reality: at a time when global trade is becoming less predictable, ASEAN stands out as the fastest-growing economic region in the world. For a small, trade-dependent economy like New Zealand, sitting a long way from most of its major markets, the region’s combination of size, growth and geographic proximity makes its importance difficult to overstate.
It is the kind of fact that sounds obvious once someone says it out loud, but is easy to lose sight of when trade is discussed mainly in terms of agreements, markets and figures.
Beyond the Numbers: The Human Element
The morning’s remarks established the scale of the opportunity. The panels that followed began to explore something more difficult: what does it actually take to build a successful relationship across the region?
Ariestelo “Telo” Asilo, Founder and CEO of Varacco, a coffee social enterprise in the Philippines built around the farmers at its centre, offered one of the Forum’s clearest reminders that Southeast Asia cannot be approached as a single, uniform market. Each country has its own culture, language and local context. Treating the region as one bloc, as it is sometimes shorthanded in trade strategy documents, risks overlooking the very things that make those markets work.
For Asilo, that means the relationship has to be more than transactional. He put it plainly: “We shouldn’t lose the heart of it, because that’s the people,” he said. “If we’re only being transactional, then all we’re talking about is tariffs and trade, and we lose the people, who are what matters most.”
It is a simple point, but one that is easy to nod along to in a conference room and much harder to live out when a business is under pressure to hit a quarterly target.
Asilo also pointed to something New Zealand and the Philippines already share, a capacity to build from what they have. “We are both countries with people who know how to build from what they have,” he said. “So I hope that my time here is not simply about what I can bring home from New Zealand. I hope it is also about what we can create together.”
That final word, together, is important. It shifts the relationship away from the language of a one-way export deal and towards something more reciprocal.
The same idea surfaced in a different form in the remarks of Kate Bezar, director at Better Packaging Co., a company working to shrink environmental footprints and create positive impact through packaging design. Its product, POLLAST!C, is a range of mailing sachets and poly garment bags made from certified recycled Ocean Bound Plastic, collected by a network of individuals in coastal communities across Southeast Asia.
Over five years, that network has cleared close to three million kilograms of waste. It is a striking figure, but Kate’s contribution was less about the number than the question behind it.
When doing business in ASEAN, are we actually helping the people we work with?
It is not a question asked at every trade event. But it gets to the heart of what Asilo was also describing: whether economic relationships can deliver value on both sides, rather than simply measuring success by what New Zealand can sell into the region.
Between their contributions, a broader picture began to emerge. Doing business with ASEAN is not simply about identifying what the region can buy from New Zealand. It is about understanding what can be built together, for New Zealand businesses and for Southeast Asian communities alike.
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-Asia Media Centre
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