NZ World Expo Chief at home in Shanghai

With 1.4 million visitors already passing through the gates of New Zealand’s multi-million dollar pavilion at the World Expo in Shanghai, you could say it has been a great success, but New Zealand Commissioner General Phillip Gibson knows the fun isn’t over yet.

The wheels of New Zealand business are turning in Asia, and China have just overtaken the United States as their second largest trading partner behind Australia, so the Expo chief’s mission here is significant.

On a recent visit to Mr. Gibson’s office in the bowels of the lavishly gardened New Zealand pavilion, the commissioner seemed animated about heading the Shanghai Expo, after his initial success leading the last Expo in Japan.

“We were very satisfied with the results we achieved from that, this is just so much bigger in scale,” the mild mannered chief said.

“The last Expo was an Expo, this is a historic Expo, this is about China presenting itself to the world in 2010, and saying we are emerging as the biggest economy over the next several decades in the world, this is us.

“I mean it’s like the Olympics in 2008, and now the Shanghai Expo in 2010, it’s a statement by China to the world and to itself.”

The passionate words of the commissioner underlie the importance of his Expo mission in China, with the New Zealand government investing 30 million dollars (U.S.) in the pavilion.

With New Zealand and Chinese trade blooming to the tune of $1 billion dollars last year, Gibson knows the importance of oiling the wheels of business.

“We’re hosting around three functions per day and that is delegations coming through, business lunches, business dinners, over the course of the Expo we are hosting nearly 250 events booked in VIP facilities” he said.

The Expo boss displays the utmost modicum of decency when refusing to let the cat out of the bag on just what’s going on in the VIP rooms.

“I don’t want to get into commercial confidence but I can say there have been deals signed upstairs in our VIP facilities,” he said.

The New Zealand Prime Minister John Key recently lamented that only 100,000 out of 53 million tourists that left Chinese shores last year travelled to New Zealand, something the pavilion hopes to turn around.

“China is a market of huge potential for us, the Expo is not just about promoting tourism but we obviously hope that many Chinese that come here are going to think, gosh what a beautiful country we’d like to visit,” Mr. Gibson said.

“I think that will be one of the flow on effects.

“I lived in Japan for six years and I well remember Japanese coming up to me and saying, we went to the New Zealand pavilion at the Osoka Expo in 1970, and 10 or 15 years later we took the family to New Zealand for a holiday, and then my grandchildren were educated there.

“So there are huge longer term flow on returns from something like an Expo.”

As the topic of conversation turns to relations with neighbours Australia and the quality of each country’s sheep, a mischievous smile crosses the Expo chief’s face.

“I don’t know, we used to have about 60 to 70 million sheep, now we have about 40 million, I don’t know, maybe ours are better looking than yours,” he told his Australian interviewer.

“I’ve been to the Australia pavilion and I saw Bob Hawke cuddling a sheep, so I’m sure there are a lot of sheep jokes going around.”

The Shanghai World Expo is running from May until the end of October, so there is plenty of time for the Expo chief to have a few Tsing Tao’s with the locals, and sells the dreams of a bright and lucrative New Zealand future with China.

ENDS

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