Sri Lanka the Brussels of South Asia for New Zealand- High Commissioner

By Kelum Bandara 

New Zealand’s High Commissioner to Sri Lanka David Pine who made elaborate comments on his country decision to open a mission in Colombo said that New Zealand may be looking at Sri Lanka as the Brussels of South Asia. He said that New Zealand sees great potential in this country. 

“It’s a beautiful island. It’s strategically located right next door to the country that’s going to be the engine of world growth in our view for the next 20 or 30 years. It has talented, well-educated people. We see opportunities to create a hub here. We are turning it in the first instance to be a diplomatic hub. So we’ve moved the accreditation for Bangladesh from New Delhi to here. We’ve moved the accreditation to Pakistan from Tehran to here.  We’re covering the Maldives. At some stage we may look at Nepal. So we’re kind of thinking of you as   the Brussels of South Asia,” he said during a roundtable discussion organized by Pathfinder Foundation. 

He said the second regional phenomenon that’s really driven the change in his country’s thinking is more in the geopolitical space. 

“I sat in on the very interesting session on Friday that you had with the Heritage Foundation, and one of the points the Heritage Foundation made was that countries had   to relearn the lesson that you can’t fully separate your economic interests from your wider strategic interests.  I think that lesson has been felt in New Zealand too. One of the things in our institutional memory is that for a long time we were far too dependent on one market, the United Kingdom, and when they entered the European Union this was a huge shock for us, and we learned the lesson back in the early 70s that we needed to diversify, and ever since then we’ve been very self-conscious about diversifying our markets and diversifying the products we sell to the world,” he said. 

He said, “We had a free trade agreement with China about 20 years ago that’s been very, very successful. We haven’t become anywhere near as dependent on China as we were on the UK going into the free market,” he said. 
Asserting that opportunities are there   for Sri Lanka and New Zealand, he said   the regional context   drove the two countries to think about opening a second post in South Asia. 

He emphasized that New Zealand wants to work with Sri Lanka on food safety and phytosanitary regulation. 
 “I think we can help you to meet other countries’ export standards. We can help you with cold chain supply management, cold chain management. You know, our real specialty, a lot of people sort of compliment us on the quality of New Zealand’s food,” he said.

  He also said that New Zealand would help improve arrivals of its nationals as tourists to Sri Lanka to 50,000 this year from 12, 0000 that came last year.    

“We set a target of lifting the number of New Zealanders who come here. It was 8,000 when we started. We got to 12,000 last year,” he said.