By BRIAN FALLOW
WELLINGTON - Approval tinged with scepticism greeted the Government's announcement yesterday of the structural arrangements for its economic development policy.
The Ministry of Commerce has metamorphosed into the Ministry of Economic Development and will be responsible for policy advice and for monitoring the performance of the delivery arm, which will be a new Crown entity, Industry New Zealand.
Details are scant about Industry New Zealand, except that its funding will rise to around $100 million by the third year of the Government's term and its board will primarily be drawn from the private sector.
Some of its staff will be drawn from the ministry; some may be expatriate New Zealanders who have been working for overseas Governments luring New Zealand enterprises offshore and who now wish to reverse the process.
A transition unit in the ministry is working on how its funding will be disbursed and according to what criteria. It will report to cabinet by the end of this month.
Economic Development Minister Jim Anderton said: "The sorts of industries that will be supported will be environmentally sustainable, job-rich, high-tech export industries, especially those located in declining regions."
Manufacturers Federation chief executive Simon Carlaw said he hoped the promised consultation with the private sector occurred before those details were decided.
The Employers and Manufacturers Association (Northern) chief executive, Alasdair Thompson, welcomed the symbolism of the ministry's name change, but said it would not be so easy to turn around the attitudes and values locked into the mindset of the ministry's personnel.
"Mr Anderton may be underestimating how long it will take for the ministry to suddenly become expert in economic development after 15 years of taking a strictly neutral stance on it," Mr Thompson said.
Auckland Regional Chamber of Commerce chief executive Michael Barnett said it was something of an anomaly that the Government was talking of attracting new enterprises to New Zealand while pursuing policies that had businesses already here throwing their hands up in the air.
Mr Anderton said he had been impressed by the integrity and professionalism of the ministry in accepting that with the new Government had come a new policy direction.
"I had been warned officials would try to capture or usurp the role of Government. I can say - and I didn't come down in the last shower - that everything we have done together has been in a cooperative and constructive way."
Commerce and Communications Minister Paul Swain said the work being done in regulatory areas dovetailed with the overall economic development strategy. This work includes the telecommunications and electricity inquiries, work to strengthen the Commence Act, sharemarket regulation and a review of tariffs.
Business wary of Anderton's plans
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