Congratulations go to Greg Canty, Technical Officer within the Global Inventory Team at Fonterra’s Whareroa site who has also recently completed the Diploma of International Trade!

Congratulations Yovitha Ramkolowan-Dale on being awarded the New Zealand School of Export Diploma of International Trade!

The New Zealand School of Export has introduced a new Jobs Page - recruit through the site and get 5% discount off course fees!

Factsheet series continues: American Samoa

Image from: http://www.anyflag.com/state/amsomoa.htm

A new factsheet on exporting to American Samoa is now available from the New Zealand School of Export FREE downloads page at:

http://www.export.ac.nz/freedownloads.html

Trade Commissioners - Trademakers

Recently a history of the New Zealand Trade Commissioner Service was published entitled: Agents Abroad. Exporters frantically involved in getting their products to market will probably say ‘I haven’t got time for history!


It does however highlight the role that the New Zealand Trade Commissioners play in developing or ‘making’ our international trade happen. You can find out whether your export destination has a trade commissioner you can contact by using the MFAT site:

http://www.mfat.govt.nz/Embassies/1-NZ-representatives-overseas/index.php

Ever wondered what a Trade Commissioner actually does? Read our interview with Anne Chappaz, former New Zealand Trade Commissioner in Vancouver on the New Zealand School of Export website: http://www.export.ac.nz/freedownloads.html

By the way the book is fascinating – did you know that in 1901 Graham Gow was appointed as a New Zealand trade representative and he went around the world for the next 12 years searching for new markets for New Zealand products? It is available through the ELIS catalogue.

Mark Harris will be interviewed on Kim Hill's Saturday morning programme  on Radio New Zealand National this coming Saturday October 24^th, 2009.  He will be speaking about ACTA and argues that the proposed regime could overlap with existing New Zealand copyright legislation and confuse principles already established by international bodies such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).

His submission on the Proposed Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement to the New Zealand Government  is available at:

http://acta.lemming-brothers.com/tiki-index.php?page=Completed+Submission

Might be worth listening to since intellectual property is such an important aspect of international trade.

Trade in Services - Untapped Potential

There seems to be a continuing and exclusive focus on the export of goods. Even in a recent column by John Carran in the Dominion Post October 10, 2009 entitled No economic salvation likely from goods exports alone where the title seems to suggest there could be other kinds of exports which will help New Zealand, trade in services gets very little support.

This is in spite of the fact that the services share of New Zealand’s total exports is about 26% and the March 2009 Balance of Payments figures show there was an increase in the export of services. Charles Finny of the Wellington Regional Chamber of Commerce said in a press release on 25 June 2009 that ‘New Zealand exported $2.9 billion of services excluding transport and travel in the last 12 months. The range of services in this category includes:

Computer, financial, telecommunications, legal, advertising, architectural, film production, engineering and many other services.’

Is it time for exporters of services to bring some balance to the push for an export-driven recovery?

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/telstar/135412439/ 20-foot (1 TEU) containers stacked in Alameda, California (Creative Commons-licensed content for noncommercial use requiring attribution)