Trade

overture

By Martin Tiffany

NEW ZEALAND’S Minister for Trade

Negotiations, Philip Burdon, visited Papua

New Guinea and Fiji last month with the aim of improving trade relationships be tween his country and the two Pacific neighbours. His objective was to bring the New Zealand business sector closer to PNG

by showing New Zealand business people

the operating environment in that country.

This, he hoped, would give his country’s business sector a bit of push as new trade

was encouraged.

A report by the the trade delegation said while there were a number of trade policy concerns to work through, a few bilateral trade issues to straighten out and some market access concerns, they were pleased with the way discussions went. The report said New Zealand was seeking a more active involvement in PNG in a range of sectors and that New Zealand was now a

much more competitive source of goods and services. While there Burdon met with Prime Minister Paias Wingti and five of his cabinet colleagues, including David Mai, the Minister for Trade and Industry, the Mining and Petroleum Minister Masket langalio, Minister of Forests and Civil Aviation, Tim Neville and the Minister for Bougainville Affairs, Michael Ogio. The delegation also met businessmen and other senior government representatives.

On May 6 the New Zealand Delegation left PNG on a Royal New Zealand Air Force Hercules aircraft bound for Fiji for similar discussions. As expected there was talk on SPARTECA with Fiji’s Minister for Trade and Commerce, Harold Powell, saying he would like to change the 50 per cent local content provision of the agree ment describing it as a long time “sore” area for Fiji manufacturers. Burdon said his country would listen to any suggestions Fiji had to make on SPARTECA adding they would listen to any initiative to help trade

with Fiji.

Similarly to PNG, Burdon said he was in Fiji to review the whole trade relationship between his country and Fiji. He especially touched on Fiji’s garment and apparel export to New Zealand which had declined drastically. He said they would look at the reasons for the decline and try to “encour age more participation from Fiji in this sector”. Burdon said investors in New

Zealand were encouraged by the invest ment climate in Fiji. He said tourism infrastructure investment interested many New Zealand investors.

Opening a meeting of the Fiji-New Zealand Business Council, Burden echoed his PNG statement saying, “New Zealand had never been as competitive as it is now”.

He said the Pacific was important to New Zealand and Fiji was the most important South Pacific market. At present Fiji imports NZSI6S million worth of New Zealand food and manufactured products.

According to Burdon New Zealand manu facturers and food producers are after an open Fiji market. He said his government would welcome liberalisation of the dairy and apparel industries, hardboard and plywood imports, bakery and biscuit prod ucts, canned meats and beer. Burdon said they sought no special favour from Fiji “just a more open market where we can compete fairly with others”, adding he hoped Fiji would continue its deregulation policy.

While in Fiji Burdon presented a NZ5530,000 cheque to Minister of State for Forests, Ratu Serpepeli Naivalu. The money is New Zealand’s contribution to Fiji’s forestry sector development. New Zealand is also helping PNG develop its forestry sector. They have provided con sultants to PNG to help with a major World Bank project aimed at making major changes to the PNG forestry sector. □