On Thursday, 18 April 2024, we held our first meeting with New Zealand Malaysia Business Association (NZMBA) to discuss our upcoming collaboration for Fieldays happening 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.

-SBANZ Committee

 Photos provided by SBANZ Founding Member Fay Seah