“Innovation will ignite engine of growth”: Ruth Richardson

Friday, 25 October 2013 04:19 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

With CHOGM only a few weeks away, keynote speaker of the evening former New Zealand Minister of Finance Ruth Richardson said the theme of the 34th National Conference ‘Innovate to Grow’ was a topic that made the conference all the more important and in fact “even more important” than CHOGM. While the Heads of States will gather to discuss and form “big plans and big ideas,” what is important is the execution of these plans,

which requires innovation – the fuel needed to ignite the engine of growth. “If you want to power up growth in the modern world, you need to harness innovation,” Richardson said. Holding up yesterday’s Daily FT for the audience to see, which featured her on the front page expressing her thoughts on the critical importance of public policy, while the FT’s back sports page carried an article on a New Zealand company coming forward to sponsor the cricket team, Richardson noted that while public policy is important and needs to be discussed, there needs to be a group of individuals carrying forward duties and building on it. See Richardson’s full speech in the Weekend FT tomorrow.