$1.4b Maori contribution to region tipped to expand

Maori contribute $1.4 billion to the Auckland economy but Te Puni Kokiri hopes the level of participation will increase dramatically as demographics change.

The Maori Development Ministry presented a major report on economic drivers and indicators to members of Auckland's Chamber of Commerce and the regional council yesterday.

It found that the Maori commercial base is worth $2.5 billion or just over 15 per cent of the $16.5 billion national Maori base. Nearly half of local assets are tied up in property and the business services - strikingly different from the rest of the country where Maori tend to have assets tied up in primary industries.

For 2005-06, participation in terms of value added to the region's domestic product was $1.4 billion or 2.8 per cent of the total.

However, almost one in four Maori, 137,000, live in the region, about 10 per cent of the population.

The importance of Auckland as the main metropolitan economic powerhouse accounting for 32 per cent of exports could not be understated, said the ministry's deputy secretary of policy, Kim Ngarimu.

Asked if the ministry was surprised at the level of underperformance in the Auckland economy given the size of the Maori population and the scale of the economy, Ms Ngarimu said she would not like to characterise the situation as "underperformance".

The numbers had to be put in context, she said. A huge chunk of local Maori, 46 per cent, were under 20 and so were not earning, compared with 28 per cent of non-Maori. But they would be major drivers of the Auckland economy in the future.