New Zealand has historically relied on the US and Europe as two of its main export markets. But this is changing and creating new opportunities.

In two recent addresses by prominant economists there is growing support for the idea that New Zealand's future rests in Asia not in the traditional markets of the US and Europe.

We've herd recent presentations by both Dr Ganesh Nana (BERL) at the Property Institute Conference and Johnathan Pain at CoreNet, talking about how the traditional economic powerhouses are likely to continue to be overperformed by the emerging economies. Pain includes in the ermerging category China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Vietman and even Australia. These countries are growing rapidly and investing heavily in infrastructure. 

This creates opportunities for New Zealand businesses as the Asian markets are geographically a lot closer than our traditional markets. Many of these emerging countries will continue to have demand for food (which New Zealand is good at) and technology, innovation and specific expertise which we are developing niche offerings in. They are also becoming increasingly affluent which will drive strong domestic consumption and consumerism.

Another interesting comment from Pain is that the New Zealand dollar will eventually reach parity with the US dollar. In his view this is good news for New Zealand as its shows confidence and strenght in the country and economy. It also reflects that the US economy, while still the largest in the world, is not as strong as it has been historically and will take some time to recover.

When will the market commentators then start to focus on the exchange rates and stock markets of the emerging countries, rather than being pre-occupied with the Dow (dare we say) or the FSTE?