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Friday, 26 September 2008

New Zealand China FTA presentation


On Wednesday 24 September I attended the final of a series of presentations around New Zealand on the New Zealand China FTA. It was good to see one of you there in Palmerston North and I hope that some others may have managed to attend. It was worth it!
If are interested in China and you haven’t already looked at the special website which has been set up, please do have a look at: http://chinafta.govt.nz/ It is a fund of useful information on the agreement itself, sections on doing business in China and a tariff finder which shows the impact of the FTA on tariffs over the next few years.
I felt that the information delivered by the speakers fitted in really well with the Diploma modules that the New Zealand School of Export offers – it was almost as though the whole presentation was a case study for our course: finance, legal aspects, market entry, trade research.
The speakers were all people who had had experience with the development of the FTA or who had been in China. There was one ‘Case study speaker’ Michael Eden from GDM Group which is centred in Wanganui. He is an importer of Chinese components and spoke of his experience of joint ventures. The company has a large, joint venture manufacturing plant with ISO 9001 grading in China, which is frequently visited by GDM Group’s key managers who facilitate training and oversee quality control. You can read about the company at http://www.gdmgroup.biz/who-we-are/company-profile.html
We were given some useful resources which will be available through ELIS catalogue eventually, but some of these are also downloadable from the website: http://chinafta.govt.nz/5-FAQ/index.php
One useful tip that came through from speakers was info about the APEC Travel Card which can facilitate entry through immigration into China and 16 other countries in the Asia-Pacific region. If you are travelling as part of your exporting, this would be really useful. See the information at: http://www.immigration.govt.nz/apec/. Perhaps some of you have already had experience in using that.
Graeme

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