Rachel Taulelei. Photo / Supplied
Abac is calling for the region to use trade as a mechanism for the reopening of borders in a safe and seamless fashion.
Rachel Taulelei's time on the Apec Business Advisory Council (Abac) has been dominated by the Covid-19 pandemic, and now culminates as the council tries to focus attention on how its members can start to reconnect.
Appointed in late 2019, Taulelei, who has had a career running food and beverage exporting firms, attended a single in-person meeting before the pandemic began doing what was previously unthinkable: closing international borders across the world.
For a time this appeared as if it may see the entire programme shelved, until Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern made the call for an entirely virtual conference.
"We were staring down the barrel of not having Abac at all and shelving our hosting of Apec this year, or going digital," Taulelei said.
Taulelei said the new format allowed New Zealand to run an ambitious programme.
Instead of a handful of in-person meetings culminating in Auckland during Apec Leaders Week, Abac set about more than 60 virtual meetings. Like the rest of Apec, this was a "vast effort, involving a cast of thousands" and meetings held at all hours with members spread around much of the globe.
The ability for guest speakers to beam in without travelling the world meant Abac could arrange for contributions such as former Prime Minister Helen Clark and education futurist Frances Valintine.
"Of course you lose something, when you can't meet in person" Taulelei said. "But a whole world of different opportunities arose.
"You can't replace what it is to meet someone over a cup of tea or glass of wine, but what we have tried to do is run this year in what I would call an authentic Kiwi way," with Taulelei sending all of the Abac members a selection of gifts from around the country.
"If Abac and Apec were going to lose relevance, I think it was going to be this year, because if people can't get together, then how on earth do they work? Well, they just find another way of working."
Though the format changed the nature of her role profoundly, Taulelei denies ever feeling a sense of loss. Chairing Abac still felt like an enormously big deal, dealing with the members who were "captains of industry" on a global level.
As well as Gaoning (Frank) Ning, the chair of the giant Sinochem Holdings (who Taulelei described as "one of the most colourful figures in business in China"), members included the chairman of the Bank of China, the chief executive of Malaysian oil and gas giant Petronas and the chairman of Taiwanese computer company Acer.
"To be able to have the time to spend with those people and the time to shepherd them through the work programme this year was a real privilege. Doing it online perhaps helped me sharpen my senses a little bit more than I would have been able to otherwise. Because you're managing a lot of moving parts at any given time."
Even though she is adamant that the digital conferencing was a success, the effect of Covid on both travel and trade means it is of little surprise that the opening recommendations of Abac in its report to the Apec leaders relate to the need for the world's borders to normalise.
While the timing needed to be handled delicately, there was no doubt closed borders were hurting businesses.
"It's definitely hurting us. It's hurting businesses who can't reopen, it's hurting businesses who can't travel when the rest of the world is starting to mobilise, but it will happen, and I think it will happen now in the relatively short term, it's just a little bit more patience," she said.
Beyond the need for business to access markets, Abac members saw the travel barriers as continuing a recent global trend towards protectionism."It was very widely acknowledged that with the borders being closed, behaviours were becoming protectionist. While we move forward very rapidly in the areas of say, custom controls and the digitalisation of processes, we were reverting back to what had been done previously."
In such a time of crisis even Taulelei admitted a hint of sympathy for why political leaders may have become focused on domestic issues, right down to issues of food security.
"If you look at, say, food safety and food security, if you needed to feed your own first, then you would have done that. But that doesn't mean we stay in that place and as borders reopen we need to be moving food products around the world."
But there was now broad agreement on a need to use improved connections as a way to prevent a slide back into protectionism.
"There were many, many conversations about the deep impact that the region would feel, and the economies would feel, and fear if we couldn't stop moving both people and services, and vaccines and medical equipment."
From adopting a risk management approach to international travel and calling for unilateral moves to allow vaccinated travellers from low risk travel (with the typically diplomatic caveats of when domestic situations allow), Abac calls for agreement across Apec for a list of essential business activities and harmonisation of approaches to vaccination recognition and testing.
While Taulelei said the normalisation of travel must only come when each of the members is ready, it appears that while Abac members might disagree on many things, there was unanimity of the overall need to bring down the barriers put up by Covid.
"Abac is calling for the region to use trade as a mechanism for the reopening of borders in a safe and seamless fashion," Taulelei said.
"We have 21 economies involved in the conversations so we have 21 positions on what safe and seamless might look like and what a movement towards reopening those borders might look like."
Like Apec, the statements of Abac are based on consensus among the members, a difficult prospect in the context of Covid (remembering that the recommendations of the members began in discussions that started months ago).
"There is a collective agreement of the need for the borders to reopen. There was no dissenting view from that position, and then it's working back from there to how it is in your economy."
New Zealand's three members on Abac split the responsibilities for different issues, with Christchurch Airport chief executive Malcolm Johns the convenor of the climate leadership taskforce and Anna Curzon, the chief product officer at Xero, convenor of the Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME) digital transformation.
As well as chairing Abac, Taulelei, a former Māori businesswoman of the year, took responsibility for both conversations on the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and a largely new topic: indigenous inclusion.
Taulelei acknowledged that some of the economies of Apec are not interested in the conversation.
"Some economies don't use indigenous as part of their common vernacular, as a word, let alone, whole conversations about how we address the striking inequities that show themselves in various economies."
While Abac's report gives clear, if aspirational, recommendations on areas like the WTO, renewable energy and climate goals, the statement of priorities on indigenous inclusion is light.
After a first-ever forum for indigenous business leaders in July, Taulelei said that while she was adamant that pushing the issue was the right thing to do, there were limits to what could be done to ensure sufficient "air time" for the 245 million indigenous people in the region.
"I think that our aspirations were managed because of the very factor of not everyone being at the start line of wanting to have the conversation," she said. "It's not for me to streak off into the future waving the indigenous flag because I know it's the right thing to do, which I do."
She did believe the exercise had been successful, in that some economies became more engaged in the issue. "We have done it at a rate and a pace that ensures it survives beyond our host year. It needs to live beyond Aotearoa's year of 2021 … and it also needs to be strong enough and sustainable enough as a conversation that it's not only a Maori woman host who's pushing that bandwagon."
While the world appears to be normalising, and Thailand, the host of Apec 2022, has committed to in-person meetings, Taulelei said this may prove difficult for a number of countries.
"I'm unclear as to how that will be possible for a number of places that can't travel," she said. While New Zealand's Managed Quarantine and Isolation (MIQ) system is likely to change, restrictions may remain in place for some time.
"I hope that we can run a bit of a hybrid model, so, if you can get there, great, but if you can't then let's allow for the conversation to keep going. That will be tricky, as hosts. How do you do that? Which is the beauty of being all online."
Rachel Taulelei
Chair
Apec Business Advisory Council 2021
Rachel Taulelei (Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga, Ngāti Rārua, Ngāti Koata) is an award-winning entrepreneur and businesswoman whose values include kaitiakitanga, whanaungatanga and pono — guardianship, relationships and integrity.
Previously, CEO of Kono NZ, founder of sustainable seafood company Yellow Brick Road and a former Trade Commissioner in Los Angeles, Taulelei is co-founder of start-up business design and brand strategy firm Oho.
In 2018, Taulelei was named Māori Woman Business Leader at the prestigious University of Auckland Aotearoa Māori Business Leaders Awards and in2019, was the recipient of a Kea World Class New Zealand Award.
She previously sat on the Prime Minister's Business Advisory Council.
Taulelei currently chairs the Wellington Regional Stadium Trust and serves on the boards of Queen Margaret College, the Warehouse Group, and the Young Enterprise Trust.
Anna Curzon leads Xero's global product team and advocates for diversity in technology and building inclusive environments, where people feel enabled to do their best work.
Curzon has served on Prime Minister's Jacinda Ardern's Business Advisory Council and serves on the board of KEA. In 2017, the global SaaS Report named her one of the Top 25 Women Leaders in SaaS.
In announcing her appointment, Ardern said Curzon has extensive experience using digital technology to enable productivity for small and medium-sized enterprises.
"With Covid-19 accelerating the need for businesses to be more digitally connected, Curson's role will allow New Zealand to make a strong contribution on issues that are front of mind for the export community."
Malcolm Johns has been CEO of Christchurch Airport since January 2014. He is a director of the Lyttleton Port Company, a member of the BusinessNZ Climate Leaders' Coalition, a board member of the Sustainable Business Council, a member of the BusinessNZ's Major Companies Group, has served on the Government's Trade for All Working Group, and is deputy chair of the board of governors of St Andrew's College.
During his 30-year career, he has held a number of senior executive and governance roles within New Zealand's transport, aviation and tourism sectors. He has a particular interest in the contribution the regions of New Zealand can make to our economic and social outcomes. Christchurch Airport has formed a number of small/medium business export mentoring and e-commerce programmes that have enabled businesses across New Zealand to enter the export sector.
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