Outcome 1: Prosperous and adaptable people, sectors and regions

MBIE helps regions, businesses and communities to grow and diversify their opportunities. We work to ensure New Zealand is better placed to adapt to global shifts. This requires ongoing investment and adaptation.

We continue to learn from our work with regions, businesses and communities and undertake evaluations to help inform future approaches.

Going For Growth

Going For Growth is a significant programme of work led out of the Economic Growth portfolio. Each of the five pillars – Developing talent, Competitive business settings, Promoting global trade and investment, Innovation, technology and science, and Infrastructure for growth – contribute to prosperous and adaptable people, sectors and regions.

As well as leading work under each pillar, MBIE manages the cross-government co-ordination of the Going For Growth agenda. In early 2025, MBIE was commissioned by the Minister for Economic Growth to lead the development of this flagship economic programme. MBIE assembled a cross-agency sprint team to drive the production of this high-priority initiative. MBIE also led the development and implementation of ministerial oversight arrangements, ensuring strong governance and alignment across agencies.

More information on Going For Growth

MBIE’s contribution to this programme of work is covered throughout this annual report.

Strengthening key industries

Tourism

The tourism sector is New Zealand’s second largest export earner, contributing over $12 billion to the economy and directly supporting nearly 200,000 jobs. To maintain and grow the tourism industry, we are supporting the Government to implement several changes to make it easier for visitors to come to New Zealand.

Boosting tourism

The Tourism Growth Roadmap, launched in June 2025, sets out the Government’s strategic vision and plan to double the value of tourism by 2034, drive economic growth, and enhance the visitor experience in New Zealand. The Tourism Growth Roadmap objectives are to:

• increase the number of international visitors to at least 2019 levels by the end of 2026
• double the export value in the next 10 years (from $9.9 billion to $19.8 billion)
• increase the number of Kiwis working in tourism and hospitality jobs.

As part of the first phase of the Roadmap, the Government invested $35 million in 2025/26 to boost international visitor numbers, enhance tourism infrastructure and drive long-term economic growth.

Investments included $19.5 million to lift international marketing in our core and emerging markets, $3 million to attract additional business events, $5 million to secure more major events, $4 million to support the Milford Road corridor improvements and $1.6 million to replace the Totara River Rail Bridge on the West Coast Wilderness Trail.

The Roadmap investments complement the $20 million Tourism Boost package announced earlier in 2025. This included $14 million to uplift international marketing, $3 million to attract business events to New Zealand and $3 million for the Regional Tourism Boost Fund for regions to collaborate to attract international visitors. Initial results show that Tourism Boost is successfully supporting visitor growth:

• The $800,000 ‘Everyone Must Go’ marketing campaign delivered by Tourism New Zealand exceeded expectations, attracting almost 8,000 additional visitors from Australia over the autumn, with the value of those bookings worth $22 million. The campaign was also an example of effective collaboration with the tourism industry, with more than 800 deals from 450 operators across accommodation, transport and experiences available during the campaign.
• The business events funding has so far enabled Tourism New Zealand to submit 112 additional conference bids with a value of $173 million (more than 100% of the targets), with subvention funding specifically supporting 8 bid wins worth $17 million and 9 incentive groups worth $4.85 million.

All Tourism Boost and Tourism Growth Roadmap initiatives are funded by the International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy (IVL).

Visiting New Zealand

This year, visitor visa requirements changed to allow visitors to work remotely while visiting New Zealand. This will help to make the country more attractive to ‘digital nomads’ – people who work remotely while travelling – and boost New Zealand’s attractiveness as a destination. We have launched a global marketing campaign about the visitor visa changes to educate travellers considering New Zealand as a destination.

Most visitors do not need a visa to come here and instead can travel on a New Zealand Electronic Travel Authority (NZeTA), of which over 1.6 million were issued in 2024/25. NZeTA requests are being decided within 72 hours, and many much quicker. For visitors from countries where a visa is required, we approved nearly 450,000 visitor visas (over h5ive working days as at 30 June 2025. More than 2 million people were able to visit New Zealand in 2024/25.

Screen production

Rebates for international screen production help attract film, television and other format productions to New Zealand, along with the resulting production expenditure. Screen production can attract international investment and skilled workers, help New Zealand’s brand and reputation, and deliver value through innovation, technology transfer and tourism. Budget 2025 provided an additional $577 million, totalling $1.09 billion over 4 years.

Production activity in the past year indicates that New Zealand remains a competitive production location with a solid reputation internationally. In 2024/25, 38 international productions received rebate payments of about $128.5 million, against production spend of $654 million in New Zealand, with a total of 22 new productions registered.

Since the rebate policy took effect in November 2023, 64 productions have registered for the international rebate of 20%. It is estimated that 11 ‘Uplift’ productions (which receive an additional 5% on top of the 20% rebate, if they meet certain criteria), registered to date under the 2023 criteria, will collectively spend $1.26 billion of relevant expenditure, qualifying for about $315 million in rebate payments.

Enhancing New Zealand as an event destination

Hosting major events helps grow the economy, create social connections, reflect and celebrate New Zealand culture and build national pride. We advise government about investing in major events and partner with the events sector to attract events, boost sector capability and build on event benefits for New Zealand. This year, the Government released a new strategy to ensure future investments in major events generate significant immediate and long-term benefits for New Zealand that align with government objectives.

The new strategy sets out a vision for the Major Events Fund: that New Zealand is internationally recognised as a desirable major events destination, delivering world-class events that generate economic and social outcomes, enhance the country’s global reputation and enrich the lives of New Zealanders.

This year, the Major Events Fund supported several successful events, including:

• the World Choir Games, hosted in Auckland from 10 to 20 July 2024, received just over $7 million from the fund. It attracted over 11,000 singers from over 42 countries, generating over 81,000 international visitor nights nationally and over $19.9 million in international visitor expenditure
• the New Zealand Sail Grand Prix (Sail-GP), held in Auckland from 18 to 19 January 2025. The event was broadcast to a dedicated television audience of 16.9 million and generated 15,000 visitor nights for Auckland. The Government committed to an investment of $5.4 million across four years (2023 to 2026) to support Sail-GP events in New Zealand
• the Supercars ITM Taupō Super400, held from 1 to 13 April 2025. While outcomes from the 2025 event are still being finalised, the 2024 event attracted 3,300 international visitors, generating 22,300 visitor nights for New Zealand and $5.2 million in international visitor spending. The event broadcast was distributed to 98 countries, including Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, with a total reach of 246 million viewers.

Regional events

This year, 123 events across the country received $2,206,301 from the Regional Event Promotion Fund. This fund supports regions to promote local events and attract more domestic visitors to the regions, particularly in quieter parts of the year for the tourism sector. A further 152 events planned for 2025/26 have approved funding of $2.6 million.

The funding comes from the IVL and, over two rounds, has invested in 277 regional events. Events funded in the second round include the National Waka Ama Sprint Championships in Waikato, the National Jazz Festival in Bay of Plenty, the 2026 Hokitika Wildfoods Festival and the NZ Premier Motorsport Summer Series events around the country.

Māori economic development

In March 2025, MBIE released Te Ōhanga Māori – The Māori Economy 2023, providing a picture of Māori economic growth over five years from 2018 to 2023. Main findings include:

• The Māori economic contribution to the New Zealand economy had grown from $17 billion to $32 billion.
• While agriculture, forestry and fishing were the main contributors to gross domestic product at the start of the period, this shifted to professional, scientific and technical services.
• The Māori asset base had grown from $69 billion to $126 billion.
• The rates of entrepreneurship had risen significantly over the five-year period, with a 49% increase in Māori self-employment and a 31% increase in Māori employers.
• The number of Māori-owned businesses totalled nearly 24,000, with the largest number located in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.
• A positive shift occurred in the skill levels of Māori workers, with 46% in high-skilled jobs, up from 37%.

Regional economic development across 2024/25

MBIE provides support to regions to help accelerate regional development, lift productivity and resilience, and boost local employment and skills. MBIE’s regional economic development and investment unit, Kānoa, leads this work.

As at 30 June, Kānoa was managing 11 active funds, supporting 587 active projects. These projects account for $1.82 billion in approved funding that is actively being managed across New Zealand’s regions, from Te Tai Tokerau to Southland to the Chatham Islands, and spanning multiple sectors. In 2024/25, 285 projects were completed across nine funds, totalling $964.55 million.

*Regional support for the impacts of Cyclone Gabrielle and January 2023 weather events

Regional Infrastructure Fund

A strong focus across 2024/25 was on the early phase of the $1.2 billion RIF, which went live on 1 July 2024.

As at 30 June 2025, over $756 million has been allocated to projects across 14 regions. The funding supports initiatives in flood resilience, energy security, water storage, Māori economic development, and enabling infrastructure, with several projects already completed. In the year ahead, our focus will shift to contracting and delivery oversight, to ensure projects are completed on time and within budget.

An important pioneering initiative is the Supercritical Geothermal Energy Project. This project is assessing the commercial viability of extracting energy from supercritical geothermal fluids, ultra-hot resources found at depths greater than 3 kilometres and temperatures that exceed 400 degrees Celsius.

This year, a governance group was established, a supercritical geothermal energy forum was held, which brought together iwi, landowners and other stakeholders, and a site selection framework was developed to identify optimal locations for the first well.

The RIF is also supporting critical flood resilience projects, allocating $101 million to co-invest up to 60 per cent of total costs, with local councils funding the remaining 40 per cent. As at 30 June 2025, of the 42 RIF-funded flood resilience projects, 41 have secured consents, 38 have commenced construction and 6 have been completed.

In June 2024, Cabinet approved a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation framework for the RIF, designed to assess short-, medium- and long- term outcomes. Insights from previous regional development evaluations helped develop the evaluation framework for the RIF. This monitoring and evaluation approach reflects best practice and will ensure a robust and transparent assessment of the RIF’s effectiveness.

The RIF is considered a Major Spending Decision from Budget 2024 and is subject to additional reporting requirements.

Monthly progress reports:

Documentation and reporting(external link) — Kānoa

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