ECONOMY: INDUSTRY AND MINERAL RESOURCES

The industries, which compete for approx. 23.6% to the formation of national income (2007), mainly concern the processing and transformation of agricultural and livestock products. However, a broad diversification of production activities is underway; Thus various medium and small industries have arisen, which produce various industrial and consumer goods, mainly destined for the internal market. In fact, there are textile and food complexes (slaughtering of cattle, breweries, canneries, dairy factories, sugar factories), tobacco factories, chemical plants (fertilizers, artificial textile fibers, dyes, plastics), cement factories, paper mills and others complexes linked to forest exploitation (over half a million tonnes of wood pulp in 2005), tire factories, mechanical plants (motor vehicles, aeronautical industry, etc.); the IT industry and shipbuilding sectors are also developing. The basic industry, although playing a more modest role, is subject to incentives; oil refineries as well as steel and metallurgical complexes operate in the country (including a large aluminum foundry, which processes imported bauxite); there are few minerals present in the country in such concentrations as to make their extraction convenient. Major industrial areas are Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. The second sector is challenged by dependence on exports and the expansion of the economies of Southeast Asian countries, which are new export markets but also competitive competitors. Furthermore, the the abolition of import licenses in 1992 and the abolition of customs tariffs in 1998 put certain sectors of the industry in difficulty, such as the clothing sector. § The energy sector is fairly represented by coal and lignite, natural gas, with the main field in Taranaki, on the North Island, from which a vast network of gas pipelines branches off; the discovered oil fields have allowed New Zealand to move closer to self-sufficiency. The water possibilities are also huge, in particular in the South Island: the hydroelectric energy produced in the country (the largest plants are those of Manapouri, Benmore, Maraetai, Roxburgh, Ohau) makes New Zealand completely self-sufficient from this point of view.. On the contrary, the exploitation of the geothermal energy. Very modest quantities of gold, silver, iron are also extracted from the subsoil (high potential for exploitation, however, the iron sands of the western beaches of the Auckland peninsula have), copper minerals, bentonite, scheelite etc.; finally, the salt marshes also have a certain importance.

ECONOMY: TRADE, COMMUNICATIONS AND TOURISM

After 1984, the reform of the economy has more liberalized the retail trade and reduced tariff restrictions on the international one. Foreign trade is vital to the New Zealand economy is essentially based on the export of meat, wool, butter and cheese, paper and wood pulp, leather and leather, fish and machinery, as well as the import of machinery and means of transport, fuels, industrial products in general (chemicals, textiles, electronics, information technology, etc.), plastics. Furthermore, e-commerce is on the rise, used not only for internal exchanges, but mainly as a means to overcome the barriers caused by the geographical distance with Western countries. Export has a fundamental weight in the formation of GDP; in recent years, New Zealand has tried to diversify the importing countries and at the beginning of the 2000s the trade takes place mainly with Australia, followed by Japan, China, United States and Great Britain (which has always in the 1970s, it had been New Zealand’s largest trading partner). In addition, the increase in the cost of raw materials, in which, as a country located in Oceania according to directoryaah.com, New Zealand is the main exporter on the world market, has significantly affected the country’s economic development. The customs barriers that hindered trade with the Cloiser Economic Relations Trade Agreement. Economic policy is aimed at signing free trade agreements with the main trading partners, including China and Thailand. the main ones have made it difficult to develop communications. For a long time the connections between the various centers that gradually were rising along the coasts were only possible by sea by means of cabotage.; Subsequently, the railways that extended in 2003 for 4,128 km, of which 506 km electrified, had considerable importance for the strengthening of internal traffic; they are managed by the state and ensure connections between the main New Zealand centers. In the South Island the main axis runs along the eastern coast from one end of the island to the other, while a transverse axis connects the two coasts, crossing the New Zealand Alps, from Christchurch to Greymouth; on the North Island, the major thoroughfare connects Wellington to Auckland. A good road network, which (2003) extended for 93,000 km (of which 59,476 km asphalted), makes up for the relative shortcomings of the railways, uniting all the regions of the country. Both domestic and foreign air services are highly efficient: the main airports are the international ones of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. § Finally, tourism is of some importance, which, since 1995 but especially since 2000, has experienced sustained growth and has become one of the main sources of currency income. The country is visited annually by over 2 million foreigners (2005), attracted by the beauty of the natural landscapes and by the interesting vestiges of the Maori civilization, mainly from Australia, South Asia and, only minimally, from the United States..