Gilbert W. Ullrich - exporter

This year one of New Zealand’s premier exporting companies Ullrich Aluminium celebrates its 50^th anniversary.   The company operates 43 distribution centres across New Zealand and Australia and exports to 23 South Pacific island nations.  It has two aluminium extrusion plants – one if Hamilton and the other in the Hunter Valley, Australia, as well as a small foundry in Dunedin.

The company is lead by CEO Gilbert Ullrich who believes that we live in an age of aluminium. Mr Ullrich has been an outstanding export leader.   He was a founder member of the Export Institute of New Zealand and participated widely in their activities – for example in their event programme for 1997 where he spoke on  The $100,000,000 issue.

He is widely regarded as a New Zealand business leader and in 2007 Gilbert Ullrich was listed as an “influencer” by Unlimited Magazine.  As far back as 1988, business writers were both writing about Gilbert Ullrich and his company and consulting him on the export trade and the economy.   For example Tom Hyde wrote an article in Metro August 1988 entitled The exporters: secrets of the new order which profiled Gilbert Ullrich and others.

One of his outstanding contributions has been to encourage international trade between New Zealand and the South Pacific.   He and his company have planned and supported trade missions to Pacific countries on a regular basis – this year visiting Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands.

He is the chairman of the NZ Pacific Business Council and his Annual Report can be read at: http://www.spasifikmag.com/nzpacificbusiness/  This gives an excellent summary of the kinds of trade activities he fosters.

This year he was appointed a member of the new Business Advisory Panel for the Auckland Council alongwith representatives of other export companies and business organisations.

 In acknowledging the company’s 50 years of success, he pays tribute to Ullrich’s 700 employees and mentions in particular the specialised export department which features multi-lingual staff. 

Photo: http://www.spasifikmag.com/nzpacificbusiness/

Sources: 

• Dominion October 29, 2011 p.B1
• Index New Zealand search (National Library of New Zealand) retrieved 22 November 2011
• http//:www.ullrich.co.nz             

              

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

PACER Plus

Image: Members of the Pacific Island Forum. Source: Wikipedia

The 40th meeting of the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders in Cairns, Australia agreed to begin negotiations on PACER Plus - a free trade agreement between members of the PIF but at the moment excluding Fiji.

This is an important decision highlighting New Zealand's export trade to the Pacific as well as concerns from a number of organizations about the effect of such an FTA on members. Already New Zealand and Australia have been labelled as 'trade bullies'.

The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has published a piece on PACER Plus at: www.dfat.gov.au/geo/spacific/pacer/ but MFAT does not yet have a document on the proposed agreement.

There is also a useful background paper entitled 'PACER: a plus or negative?' on the Islandsbusiness website at:
http://www.islandsbusiness.com/islands_business/index_dynamic/containerNameToReplace=MiddleMiddle/focusModuleID=17625/overideSkinName=issueArticle-full.tpl

'Islands Business' has a wealth of information about PACER and is also accessible through ELIScat, alongwith other background material on PACER.

Is it a step forward or back for the Pacific?