At the recent Maori Economic Summit BERL Chief Economist Dr Ganesh Nana presented a summary of findings of BERL’s projects undertaken for the Maori Economic Taskforce and Te Puni Kokiri. His presentation is available here.

BERL estimated the size of the Maori economy in terms of the asset base, as well as income, spending and GDP contributions to the wider New Zealand economy. Based on this information we generated some scenarios as to the development of the Maori economy, under various assumptions as to the use of science and innovation opportunities over the coming years.

We concluded that there are significant potential benefits arising from a better alignment and engagement between the nation’s science and innovation effort and businesses in the Maori economy. However, a reluctance to address the current misalignment would lead to significant opportunity costs being incurred. The two reports are available here:

Maori Economy, Science and Innovation Scenarios

The Asset Base, Income, Expenditure and GDP of the 2010 Maori Economy.

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