Business - Wellington's Advantages - Wellington

'Downtown Wellington' sign, Manners Mall

As a place to establish a business, Wellington has many advantages. For comprehensive information and help, contact Regional Economic Development Agency, a publicly-funded agency that works with businesses in the Wellington region.

Grow Wellington website

Distribution Hub

Wellington's location at the geographic centre of the country makes it an ideal distribution hub. The Wellington region has a deepwater port, international airport, and excellent road, rail and sea links to the North and South Islands and internationally.

The Nation's Capital

Because Wellington city is the nation’s capital, you’ll be close to where economic decisions are made and will enjoy easy access to policy makers.

NZ Government website

Educated Workforce

Wellington also has the most highly educated workforce in the country and is a cosmopolitan city (25% of residents were born overseas), which is very welcoming to new arrivals.

Other Advantages

Other advantages of doing business in Wellington include:

world class telecommunications infrastructure
home to the first stock exchange (NZX) to open in the world each day
comparatively low business costs for energy, accommodation, communications and technology, by world standards
business incubation and accelerator support for potential high-growth companies.

World-leading Broadband Capability

Wellington has arguably one of the world’s best connected central business district’s (CBD) in terms of broadband connectivity. This environment has played a key role in attracting and retaining many creative and innovative businesses.

Wellington’s CBD offers four high-capacity, fibre-optic networks for high-speed data transmission, provided in two competitive business models.

New Zealand’s biggest telecommunications companies, TelstraClear and Telecom, offer a competitive choice using the traditional, vertically integrated service provision model. CityLink and Vector provide an alternate model of ‘open-access networks’. These companies cater particularly to businesses that require symmetrical broadband at speeds of up to 1 Gigabit per second for intra-city connectivity.

Cabling Network

View from Brooklyn across Wellington harbour

Broadband is also available beyond the CBD. The CityLink network, which was incubated by Wellington City Council in the mid-1990s, uses the city’s overhead trolley bus lines to carry the fibre. This extends the network into many suburbs. The innovation has been hailed globally as a pioneering achievement - without parallel in Australia or New Zealand.

CityLink also operates CaféNET, a pervasive WiFi network, providing near complete wireless coverage of the city’s CBD along with hotspots in many non-CBD areas.

A new, open-access network is being established in communities neighbouring Wellington city. Porirua, Hutt City and Upper Hutt have established Smartlinx 3 Ltd with local community shareholders. Its objective is to establish a competitive, high-bandwidth telecommunications infrastructure available to the communities in these areas.

Wellington’s compactness and educated population have also contributed to it being seen as a great test market for developing new high-tech services and products.