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What you need to know

Drones have the potential to make fundamental changes to how New Zealanders do business, move goods and even transport people.

In 2019 we, together with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, commissioned a study to quantify the potential benefits of drones to the New Zealand economy and support cross-government work towards the efficient integration of drones into our transport system. The study was released by the Minister of Transport in June 2019 and we followed this up with a presentation in August 2019 for government and aviation sector stakeholders.

The study showed that the benefit to the economy of using drones could be between NZD$4.6 billion and NZD$7.9 billion over 25 years. The industries which could benefit most from drones are dairy cattle farming and sheep, beef and grain farming, which could see benefits of NZD$4.3 billion and NZD$1.6 billion respectively.

The work to date

03
Aug 2019

Presentation of the Drone benefit study

We hosted a presentation from Market Economics about the results of the study and the methodology used.

More information and related documents
02
Jun 2019

Final report released

The results of the Drone Benefit Study suggest drones could help lift productivity across large parts of the economy. However, it will be necessary to overcome industry resistance to using drones if we are to realise their benefits.

More information and related documents
01
Nov 2018

Drone Benefit Study commissioned

The Drone Benefit Study was commissioned to help inform the ongoing work on drone integration, especially the Taking Flight vision paper.

More information