understand SPARTECA”

“Island traders do not understand SPARTECA”

Forum Island countries appear to have failed to impress Aus tralia and New Zealand with their viewpoint on clothing quotas. This was one of the main points of argument at the June meeting in Nauru of the Regional Committee on Trade, a conference described by some observers as “quite a hot little meeting on some points.”

Australian and New Zealand delegates were firm, it was reported, in their view that “access, even in excess, does not guarantee success.”

They, and private enterprise participants in the conference, said it was clear that Forum Island country trade officials and exporters did not fully understand the global quota/ special quota relationship.

The special quota was intro duced as a temporary facility to establish market penetration for F.l.C’s in a highly competitive and restricted entry market.

The F.I.C. exporter has a con siderable added advantage in that his product enters duty free, while imports from other countries attract a duty of 40 per cent.

“It is up to the F.I.C. expor ter, once he has made sales under the special quota, to establish a permanent place in the Australian import market by competing with other countries’ products for a share of the global quota on the basis of price, quality, design, spe cialisation, packaging, order size, frequency and reliability of delivery,” says the latest bulle tin of the Pacific Islands Association of Chambers of Commerce.

Forum Island producers have advantages in many of these areas. Most of them operate on a relatively small scale and so quality control ought to be excellent. Capacity to handle small orders of special lines should also be greater than in countries with larger facilities where minimum orders of 100 gross, or full container loads, were common.

Pacific Islands designs are usually popular, and sell well, in both Australia and New Zea

land. And distances are relative ly short, with good, regular shipping services available and air freight a viable alternative.

Assistance is available under SPARTECA, and other Austra lian and New Zealand aid prog rams, with packaging, presenta tion and marketing.

Yet, according to both Aus tralian and New Zealand de legations at the R.C.T. meeting, island manufacturers are not using the opportunities avail able to them under Article VIII of SPARTECA. This covers assistance available to organisa tions and exporting companies for the improvement of their management, research, proces sing, quality control, packaging, marketing, promotion, technol ogy transfer, trade fairs and exhibitions.

Exporters should realise, the

committee was told, that access to a market, and even quota concessions, were not enough to ensure success. Govern ments could not legislate sales success. Exporters in the island countries had to apply initiative and expertise to win sales in what were very competitive markets indeed.

The committee was also told that island exporters did not seem to be taking proper advantage of the very wide range of technical assistance programs available from Aus tralia and New Zealand. These included the Australian Execu tive Services Overseas Program (AESOP), the Export Marketing Advisers Program (EMAP), and the Australian Development Assistsnce Bureau (ADAB) which, like its New Zealand counterpart, provides a wide

range of development assist ance, ranging from the promo tion of joint ventures to the organisation of international seminars.

Perhaps prime among these organs of assistance is the South Pacific Trade Commis sioner’s office which, according to the Pacific Islands Associa tion of Chambers of Commerce bulletin is “very poorly utilised, especially by private enterprise operators in the Pacific Is lands.”

The office, based in Sydney, and run by Mr Bill McCabe, one of the most expert of senior Australian Trade Commission ers, is totally funded by the Australian government under its general aid program,and is devoted, totally, and without even the most slender of strings, to the promotion of Pacific Islands trade.lt is a facil ity which is offered to no other group of countries and it offers support and expertise which none but the very few, larger, island countries can afford to set up for themselves.

Staff Writer.