New marketing angles
p. 42 · Read in the full issue
for Islands products
Promotion of island products in the markets of developed coun tries has lately changed direction with direct selling now an integral part of any trade exhibition.
At Ausipex all the island countries not only had stamps on show, but had them for sale.
Last September the South Paci fic Trade Commission ran a show called; “Vanuatu, Im pressions, Expressions” at which 12 organisations were represented by three people from Vanuatu and several agents in Australia who were actively selling products ranging from cane furniture, to jewel lery, to artists’ paintings.
In October a promotion was held in Brisbane for the Solo mon Islands. It was mounted at a shopping centre and was
aimed not just at talking about what the Solomons had, but actually selling the items.
This effort has now gone as far afield as London where $lO,OOO worth of handicrafts have now been landed for the Chelsea Fair. These are of high quality and are expected to sell very well.
As well as this, more traditio nal promotional efforts are con tinuing. Fiji will send to New Zealand a delegation represen ting 11 companies hoping to attract not only sales for Fiji manufactures, but also new in vestments from New Zealand industrialists. It is a joint effort between government and the private sector. The Fiji Econo mic Development Board has joined with the Fiji Manufactur ers’ Association to mount the show.
“Any exporter looking at a new market, and promoting his goods, has got to have an eye to what might be worth selling in the future,” says Anthony Haas, chairman of Asia Pacific Economic News, Ltd., of Wel lington. “What he discovers in the marketplace governs his investment decisions. The Fiji trade mission to New Zealand is obviously looking not only at immediate sales, but also at longer-term opportunities.”
The delegates will be looking for joint venture partners, and also for products which they might be able to produce, either for their home market or for export to Australia and New Zealand (under SPARTECA) and other nations.
Aiding this, they hope, will be easing of constraints under the rules of origin provisions of SPARTECA. A conference with that goal has already been held between officials of the Austra lian and New Zealand govern ments. They also looked parti
cularly at ways of helping the smaller island countries which, up to now, have benefited much less than some of the bigger nations, like Fiji. South Pacific Forum leaders at their last meeting in Tuvalu appointed a task force to exam ine ways of developing exports from the small Pacific islands.
They suffer particularly from lack of a base market of their own, as well as from the com mon Pacific difficulties of high transport costs over big dist ances, shortage of raw materials, and lack of home grown know-how.
Results of the rules of origin review have not yet been pub lished, although the object of the conference was to see if some materials from either Aus tralia or New Zealand could be accepted by the other. As SPARTECA rules now stand duty-free concession is given into Australia on the basis of producing-country, plus Austra lian, content. New Zealand con tent is not counted.