The Invisible Market
BROUGHT YOU BY:
In a 2017 column in Vice, Sophie Gray bemoaned the “cloak of invisibility that often rests on the shoulders of Chinese New Zealanders”. While this 30-year-old theatre director was writing about the lack of stories from, and about, the Chinese Kiwi community, she may well have been reflecting the invisibility of this growing market to many advertisers and marketers in New Zealand.
The 2013 census showed Asians comprised almost 12 percent of the New Zealand population and in 2017, according to Stats NZ, New Zealand saw its largest group of net migrants arriving from China, with 9,300 arriving in the country.
The surge in Chinese immigration took shape in 2010, when, for the first time, Mainland China became New Zealand's top source country for family immigration through the Family Sponsored Stream and the Partnership policy. At that time, large numbers of Chinese nationals chose to study in New Zealand and gain the recognised qualifications to obtain skilled employment in New Zealand.
Currently there are between 130,000 and 170,000 Chinese in New Zealand with permanent residency, but with the many students studying in this country, as well as those on short-term visas, the potential market is probably around 300,000. The influx
