How businesses employing Chinese workers can tap markets

Chinese immigrants are a huge resource largely untapped by the local business community, according to James Gu and Kenneth Wang.

The biggest obstacles for new immigrants are a lack of language skills and computer and sales skills, says Gu, managing director of financial software publishing business MasterSoft, currently based at Auckland University of Technology's Technology Park. He is also the author of the Chinese-language book Essentials for Investing and Doing Business in New Zealand.

Before he left China, Gu worked as an electronic engineer in a large research company.

Working in smaller companies in Australia and New Zealand meant he had to develop his sales and marketing skills. The specialist approach in China means immigrants are short on generic skills, says Gu.

Take typing and letter-writing. Because of the complexity of the Chinese alphabet, any sort of typing is a specialist task in China, with even the most simple letters passed onto an expert. But such skills can easily be taught, says Gu, who has lived in Australia and New Zealand for 13 years.

New immigrants' verbal language skills usually need work, but their writing and reading are usually good, he says.

Why not take advantage of this bilingualism at home and abroad?

He commends those retailers, real estate agencies and banks which employ Asians because of their language skills.

Wang feels New Zealanders need to start seeing themselves as part of the global community, not as a small isolated country at the end of the world.

"Chinese are very persistent and will often accept low pay and low-level jobs to gain the experience they need to move up the ladder and prove themselves. And they do," says Wang, who has lived here 18 years, initially entering as an international student studying a masters in fine arts at Elam.

Many New Zealand businesses face two challenges, says Gu. One is shortage of funding for development or expansion - New Zealand's venture investment is one of the lowest in the world. The other is lack of distribution channels to key overseas markets.

"Yet immigrants can offer invaluable connections to potential markets overseas. Why not employ someone who has cultural knowledge and can help open doors?"

The government has encouraged immigrants because of their potential to add value to New Zealand, he says, and Chinese immigrants also often arrive with money to invest.