Christopher Luxon is a man on a mission, literally and figuratively.

He leaves today on his first mission to Southeast Asia as Prime Minister and has quite deliberately chosen the region.

And while his adjustment from business to politics has drawn much commentary, there can be little doubt that his business experience will be of immense value on what is essentially a business-focused trip.

His first official visit was to Australia, and now along with a 24-person business delegation (see below) he is headed to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines.

“I know the region well from my former life at Unilever. These are markets that I spent a lot of time in as well.”

He says the aim of the visits to reinvigorate New Zealand’s relationships across Southeast Asia where there was huge potential.

“What I’ve got to do in my role is to build good rapport in leader-to-leader level.

“I’m an extrovert, I’m relational and I know the markets well,” he said.

“I want to prioritise Southeast Asia because I think there is a tremendous amount of opportunity for us there for our security and our prosperity. There are big opportunities for us in the region.”

Luxon said he had stressed to the cabinet that he wanted an all-of-government approach to lift the intensity of relationships with key partners.

That was clearly underway with Foreign Minister Winston Peters, Defence Minister Judith Collins and Trade Minister Todd McClay.

Peters has just returned from a two-week trip to six cities in five countries in which he held official talks with foreign ministers from Belgium, Egypt, The European Union, the Netherlands, Poland, South Korea, Sweden, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the United States, as well as meeting leaders of the United Nations, Nato, and the Arab League. He has also visited Australia, Singapore, India, Indonesia, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa and the Cook Islands.

Peters and Collins visited Australia in February for joint talks with their counterparts and Collins was in the US in the past week. McClay has been to India, Singapore, Geneva, the United Arab Emirates and is currently in China.

All of this has happened in the 166 days since the Government was sworn in.

Luxon: “Between myself and Winston and Judith in Defence and Todd in Trade you’ve already seen the four of us lifting the intensity quite a lot in our re-engagement with these relationships of traditional friends and of new partners potentially as well.”

Australia was his first priority.

“My next priority is Southeast Asia and the Pacific.”

The 10 Southeast countries that make up the Asean group have a combined population of 683 million – and some of the highest economic growth rates in the world.

It was a deliberate choice to make Singapore his first top on the mission because of its role as an “indispensable partner” to New Zealand in Asia, economically, politically and strategically.

“If you think about the position of Singapore after the war, through three Prime Ministers [since independence] to be able to be the knowledge-based economy that they are with high-value, high-growth, high incomes, with high levels of education and able to embrace technology and innovation and the higher paying jobs that come with that.

“Those are things that are of great interest to me as I think about where New Zealand needs to go in the next 20 years as well.”

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in the Beehive in 2012. Photo / Mark Mitchell

This will be Luxon’s third meeting with Singapore’s Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong. They met when Luxon was in Opposition and in Melbourne at Australia’s Asean summit last month. He will also again meet deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, who is expected to succeed Lee in November.

Luxon met the other two leaders in Melbourne, Thailand’s Srettha Thavisin, who became Prime Minister in September 2023, and the Philippines’ Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr who has had the top job since 2022.

The parallels between Srettha and Luxon are clear. He is a businessman turned politician and is putting a similar emphasis on the economic development of the country.

When Luxon worked for Unilever, Srettha worked for its main rival, Procter and Gamble.

Luxon travelled on a trade missions in his former life as chief executive of Air NZ when John Key went to China. Now he is taking his own and has asked Fonterra chief executive Miles Hurrell and Air NZ chairwoman, Dame Therese Walsh to lead the business group.

Dame Therese Walsh

The full delegation comprises: Frances Valintine, founder and director of academyEX; Dame Therese Walsh, chair of Air NZ; Scott Tasker, chief customer officer, Auckland International Airport; Amelia Linzey, Group chief executive, Beca; Dave Rouse, CEO, CarbonClick; Sarah Ottrey, chair of Christchurch International Airport; Brett Hewlett, chair of Comvita; Traci Houpapa, chair, Federation of Maori Authorities; Miles Hurrell, CEO, Fonterra; Ben Reed, managing director, Hamilton Jet; Les Morgan, COO, Hind Management/Sudima Hotels; Cathy Clennett, chair and founder, Hiringa Energy; Jan Thomas, Vice-Chancellor, Massey University; Paul Newfield, CEO, Morrison; Matt Kennedy-Good, co-founder and chair, Neocrete; Wayne Mulligan, CEO, NZ Bio Forestry; Fran O’Sullivan, managing director, NZ Inc Ltd; Stephen Burrows, CEO, NZSkydive Ltd; Grant Cochrane, CEO, Oritain Global Ltd; Mark Piper, CEO, Plant and Food Research; Linda Falwasser, CEO, Tawhaki Joint Venture; Grant Verry, CEO The Foodbowl; Kia Zia, CEO, Tuaropaki Trust; and Mark Rushworth, CEO, UP Education.

This article was originally published on the NZ Herald here.