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Small and medium businesses exported more to central Africa than they did to Australia last year, according to Statistics New Zealand’s Tatauranga Umanga Maori business survey.
Survey manager Jason Attewell says that reflects the high rate of innovation in the sector, which now exports to at least 53 countries.
Total exports were worth $44 million, up 15 percent on 2014, including $13.4 million to the United Kingdom, $6 million to central Africa and $5.1 million to Australia.
Richard Jones from Maori small business agency Poutama Trust says the expansion of Maori food producing business into international food markets validates the trust’s 2010 decision to concentrate on the food sector, and particularly on adding value to export products.
He says an example is the young, dynamic, entrepreneurial group of innovators working in the honey sector.
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