Singapore is the model

Press, 2 June 1989, Page 8

Singapore is the model

By

ADRIAN BROKKING,

finance editor of “The Press.”

If Going for Goals achieves nothing more than an increase in civic pride, it would still be a worth-while exercise. But it should achieve more. I believe that this is not so much a matter of bright ideas than of a shoulder to the wheel attitude. To sit around and say ‘‘let’s throw this idea up to the ceiling and see if it sticks,” is easier than turning words into deeds.

At Christchurch’s Going for Goals forum this week-end the focus will be on the city’s strengths and potential and people’s ideas about how these could be developed to shape Christchurch’s future.

The organisers want ideas from the community. This is the last in a series of articles in which “The Press” has given a range of invited Canterbury citizens the chance to give their ideas and goals for the city and the region.

If we mentally review the towns and cities around the world that we find interesting enough to want to visit, we conclude that the pattern followed by most is prosperity, which is translated by intense civic pride into a beautiful environment.

the port is the focus of a section of country side. The well-being of each of them is inexorably bound up with the other. The main stimulus to Christchurch growth will continue to be the prosperity of Canterbury farmers. The Rakaia River irrigation scheme would no doubt have boasted agricultural output in the province, and the resulting wealth would have been widely distributed because of the various multiplier effects. Another consequence of New Zealand geography is high transport cost, for a South Islander, marketing in Auckland is virtually the same as exporting, but the other side of the coin is that real exporting should be as practical from Christchurch as from Auckland. To that extent the city

The civic pride may be here in Christchurch, but it falls short of actually contributing to a more beautiful city. A number of public appeals, such as for the Town Hall complex, or for the restoration of the museum — undoubtedly an interesting enough tourist attraction — have failed or are failing to meet their target., Of course, it needs money, and just as obviously, the money comes first. And that means attracting investment, to be followed by jobs. Because of the peculiar topography of New Zealand, every main coastal centre is the distribution point for its own hinterland but no more. Conversely,

GOING w GOALS

should not have to worry about the economics of scale associated with being in the middle of a large market. An econometric input-output model for the province would be a help to any plan.

In business we should concentrate on the export of batchproduced, high-quality goods. We should not compare Christchurch with Memphis, but with a place like Singapore or Hong Kong.