Originally Posted by
iceman
The stark difference as I see it is that Iceland has leveraged their knowledge in primary industries, particularly fishing, fish production, geothermal energy and hydro energy, to build "best of breed" technology companies that have come up with clever solutions making them some of the World's biggest in their small specialists fields. These technology companies have been able to grow because the Icelandic primary industry companies themselves have encouraged the development and are always the first to implement the new technology. Like the fish factory I visited 3 years ago that used to process 300 tonnes per day with 180 people, running 3 x 8 hour shifts.
Today they process 2,000 tonnes with 30 people, all technicians.
I took some of these guys around NZ fish factories in 2019 and they were simply flabbergasted. One of them told me afterwards that most of the processing facilities would never even get a processing licence under European regulations.
Why does NZ not have lots of leading technology companies grown out of our primary industries. Of course we have a few shining example like Gallaghers, dear I say it ATM and a few others that are World leaders in their field, but far fewer than we should.
The No 8 wire is not always enough :p