Coffee meeting with Simon Bridges from Auckland Business Chamber, Dave Ananth and Roshidah Mangnall from NZMBA
Last week, Singapore Business Association New Zealand (SBANZ) and New Zealand Malaysia Business Association (NZMBA) met with former National Party leader and Transport Minister Simon Bridges in Auckland.
Mr Bridges, who is now the chairman of Auckland Business Chamber and NZ Land Transport Agency Waka Kotahi, gave us an insightful perspective on how we can foster stronger ties between the chambers. Together, we discussed opportunities to boost bilateral trade between Singapore, Malaysia and New Zealand.
We also shared with Mr Bridges on what’s upcoming for Fieldays 2024 – how SBANZ is collaborating with NZMBA to create networking opportunities with ambassadors, high commissioners, local and foreign delegates. Our dialogue was fruitful and we anticipate more of such exchanges with fellow business chambers in the near future.
We are proud to share that His Excellency Mr William Tan Wei Yuan, Singapore’s High Commissioner to New Zealand, has joined Singapore Business Association New Zealand (SBANZ) as an Advisor.
Mr Tan was appointed as the High Commissioner last year and was previously the Director-General of the Technical Co-operation Directorate, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Singapore from 2019 to 2023. He is no stranger to our community, having recently attending our annual Lunar New Year Gathering in Auckland, where we connected as fellow Singaporeans living abroad and ushered in the new year together.
We thank Mr Tan for his gracious support and are delighted to have him on board for our new journey ahead.
On Thursday, 18 April 2024, we held our first meeting with New Zealand Malaysia Business Association (NZMBA) to discuss our upcoming collaboration for Fieldayshappening from 12 to 14 June in Hamilton. Known as New Zealand’s largest annual agricultural event, Fieldays is a massive project that will involve New Zealand government representatives, trade delegates, ambassadors and businesses from all over the world.
The following committee members from both associations were present:
SBANZ : President Tan Eng Wan, Deputy Vice President Sunil Khemlani, Secretary Tok Xie Ying, Events Co-ordinator Olivia Su, Founding Member Fay Seah
NZMBA : President Dave Ananth, Treasurer Roshidah Mangnall, Secretary Pam Louis
We kickstarted the meeting by sharing our respective updates and progress with regards to preparation for Fieldays. In addition, we made it a priority to establish and align our goals and objectives for our first joint collaboration.
Given the immense scale and number of days involved for this event, we conducted a deep dive on the programme outline, logistic arrangements and marketing efforts involved from both sides to ensure all our bases are covered. With local government representatives planning to attend, we also discussed which foreign trade delegates and international ambassadors we should host.
All of us agreed that this may be our first collaboration, but it is clear that there are many more opportunities that makes sense for us to pool together our resources and branch out our network. Together with NZMBA, we are confident that we can make Fieldays a launchpad that will help businesses and investments thrive in the growing agritech space. Do look forward to more details that will be shared on our event page.
The Singapore Business Association New Zealand (SBANZ) held its first inauguration meeting last Friday, 8 March 2024. This marks the official incorporation of the organisation in New Zealand.
We invited Singaporeans who are working professionally in Auckland and those from the Working Holiday Group for our networking session. Many thanks to Kadir Satay for providing an assortment of authentic Singaporean Malay Food that truly brought a taste of home to everyone in attendance.
Keep an eye out for more SBANZ activities in the future and we look forward to seeing new faces at our next event.
