straight back out of Singapore. The whole country could fit in Lake Taupo," he said. "But I think we can probably build a stronger relationship with Singapore than we've had in the past, as a Treasury, and exchange views and ideas and learn from each other." Makhlouf was "very cautious" about asserting whether New Zealand had reached perfect best practice in terms of its currency policy. Related Topics "When it comes to currency, I'm probably in the world of who it was who talked about democracy being the least worst form of politics," he said. "I think the floating currency that we have here has given us great advantages in the time of the GFC [Global Financial Crisis]. I'm not sure we could really work with the sort of system the Singapore government has got. I'm not particularly keen on a currency board/peg like Hong Kong." 'It's really about competitiveness and productivity' The current issues being had with the currency just highlighted the importance of New Zealand's competitiveness with the rest of the world, with a focus needed on productivity in the economy. "There's big pressure on exporters, but actually, as an economy, we need to become more competitive than we are. I think what the currency is doing is putting even greater focus on that," Makhlouf said. Becoming more productive relied on improving New Zealand's international connections through schemes like ultra-fast broadband, and making sure the skill set of the labour force fit with what New Zealand wanted to