APEC 2026 and New Zealand’s role in the Asia-Pacific’s shared future
Submitted by Anna-May Isbey, International Engagement Advisor, Auckland Business Chamber, and Executive Director, New Zealand China Trade Association.
Originally written for the New Zealand Business Roundtable in China's (NZBRiC) Q3 Industry Report
In November, the Auckland Business Chamber and the New Zealand China Trade Association are preparing a New Zealand business delegation to the APEC CEO Summit in Shenzhen. We are going because the challenges that will shape New Zealand’s future—climate change, food and energy security, ageing populations and technological change—are shared across the Asia-Pacific. New Zealand companies and public sector leaders need to be part of the regional response, bringing expertise where we can contribute and learning where others are further ahead.
The scale of our connection to the region makes that participation a commercial necessity. APEC’s 21 economies account for roughly 40 percent of the world’s population, half of global trade and 60 percent of global GDP. China has been New Zealand’s largest trading partner since 2017, with more than NZ$41 billion in two-way trade in the year to September 2025. Our businesses also rely on customers, suppliers and investors in Australia, Southeast Asia, Japan, Korea and the Americas. What happens in those economies affects demand for our exports, the cost and reliability of our imports, and where New Zealand companies can grow.
APEC gives economies a way to make that trade easier and to tackle problems none can solve alone. Its Business Travel Card has simplified short-term travel for eligible businesspeople. Members have also agreed to cap tariffs at five percent or less on a list of 54 environmental goods, reducing a barrier to trading technologies used in cleaner energy and environmental protection. These outcomes show the value of sustained regional work: governments agree on a practical change, and businesses can use it to reach partners and customers.
The work ahead is harder. APEC forecasts regional growth of 3.2 percent in 2026, but warns of risks from energy costs, geopolitical tensions and trade policy uncertainty. Climate change is testing food production and energy systems. AI is changing the skills businesses need. Across much of the region, ageing populations are placing greater demands on workers, health systems and public finances. These pressures reach New Zealand whether or not we take part in discussions about them. Participation gives us a better chance to shape the response.
Food production is one area where a shared challenge is already producing regional solutions.
Farmers across the Asia-Pacific need to produce more efficiently while facing labour shortages and pressure on land and resources. Auckland-founded Halter’s solar-powered collars let farmers guide cattle, set virtual fences and monitor herds remotely. Farmers and ranchers now use the technology in New Zealand, Australia and the United States to manage grazing and reduce the time spent moving and checking animals. The conditions differ in each country, but the underlying problem is familiar: how to care for livestock and make better use of pasture with limited people and resources.
Clean energy faces a different obstacle: developing it can be expensive and uncertain.
Geothermal projects require substantial investment before developers know precisely what lies beneath the ground. Christchurch-founded Seequent makes software that helps them model those conditions and make better drilling decisions. It has a multi-year agreement with a Japanese energy company supporting geothermal development in Japan and internationally, including Indonesia. Separately, at Indonesia’s Lumut Balai project, Seequent says its modelling helped Pertamina reduce drilling risk. By lowering uncertainty for developers, New Zealand expertise can help regional partners bring more reliable renewable energy into production.
Ageing populations are changing what the region needs from its food system.
Alongside nutrition for muscle health, there is growing interest in products that support cognitive health later in life. Fonterra’s longstanding Chinese customer BY-HEALTH has completed a clinical trial of an ingredient combination that included Fonterra’s milk fat globule membrane. According to Fonterra, the trial found improvements in measures of cognitive function among people with mild cognitive impairment. It is an early research result, rather than a finished product, but it shows how New Zealand dairy expertise and a Chinese partner’s research can be brought together around a specific challenge facing the region.
These companies built their own partnerships, but their experience helps explain what is at stake in China’s APEC host year. Under the theme Building an Asia-Pacific Community to Prosper Together, its priorities are openness, innovation and cooperation. The agenda includes trade digitalisation, AI, food security and sustainable growth. Businesses can show officials exactly where cooperation would help: whether a promising technology faces different approval requirements in each market, a shipment is held up by incompatible paperwork, or a joint project needs people with specialised skills to move between economies. Policymakers can then work through those barriers, giving more companies the chance to respond to regional needs.
We also want the CEO Summit to help start more partnerships of this kind. Alongside the Summit, the Chamber and NZCTA are developing targeted meetings and visits in Guangdong. We want delegates to discuss the challenges they share with businesses across the region, understand what each side can contribute and find partners willing to pursue commercial opportunities together. APEC brings leaders into the same place; the relationships they build can carry that cooperation into specific projects and markets.
New Zealand has good reason to take part in shaping the rules as well as building the relationships. Ahead of New Zealand’s 2021 APEC host year, then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said “Trade has been the engine of growth and prosperity in our region since APEC was founded 30 years ago.” Open markets and predictable rules matter greatly to a small economy. We earn a stronger place in those discussions when we also listen to our neighbours’ priorities, share expertise they can use and honour the commitments we make together.
Many of us will still be working in 2040, when APEC aims to achieve its vision of an open, dynamic and resilient Asia-Pacific. By then, we’ll be able to see whether the choices we make today helped farms adapt, expanded reliable clean energy and supported people to live well as they age. Getting there will depend on relationships built over time, across economies and between the public and private sectors.
The Summit gives us a chance to meet others confronting the same challenges. Our contribution will come from finding where New Zealand’s capabilities match regional needs—and doing the work with partners to turn that match into better food production, cleaner energy and healthier lives.