Foreign Minister Murray McCully today named diplomat Joanna Kempkers as New Zealand’s next High Commissioner to India. Ms Kempkers will be based in New Delhi and cross-accredited to Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.
“As members of the Asia-Pacific region, New Zealand and India have a close relationship,” Mr McCully says.
“India is our second largest source of skilled migrants and international students.
“Two-way goods and services trade exceeds $2 billion, and the Government has high expectations for the further development of India as a key economic and political partner for New Zealand.
Ms Kempkers is currently the Director of Protocol Division at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and has previously served as High Commissioner to the Cook Islands.
Foreign Minister Murray McCully today named diplomat Andrew Jenks as New Zealand’s next Ambassador to Spain.
“Spain is an important partner for New Zealand and a key member of the European Union,” Mr McCully says.
“Spain is a base for a number of NZ companies operating in the region, and there is scope to further develop our trade and economic relationship.
“We also share political and security interests through our cooperation on the United Nations Security Council over the past two years, and our participation in operations such as the UN mission in Afghanistan.”
Mr Jenks has previously been posted to Ottawa, Jakarta and Paris. As Ambassador to Spain he will also be accredited to Andorra.
The latest New Zealand Manufacturers and Exporters Association (NZMEA) Survey of Business Conditions completed during November 2016, shows total sales in October 2016 decreased 6.81% (year on year export sales decreased by 20.72% with domestic sales increasing by 20.14%) on October 2015.
In the three months to October, export sales decreased an average of 7.0%, and domestic sales increased 13.9% on average.
The NZMEA survey sample this month covered NZ$288m in annualised sales, with an export content of 56%.
Net confidence rose to 42, up from -23 in September.
The current performance index (a combination of profitability and cash flow) is at 98, up from 94.3 last month, the change index (capacity utilisation, staff levels, orders and inventories) was at 101, up from 99 in the last survey, and the forecast index (investment, sales, profitability and staff) is at 105.5, up on the last result of 102.33. Anything over 100 indicates expansion.
Constraints reported were 63% markets, 16% skilled staff, 10.5% capital and 10.5% production capacity.
A net 5% of respondents reported a productivity decrease for October.
Staff numbers decreased 1.29% year on year in October.
Supervisors, tradespersons, managers, professional/scientists and operators/labourers reported a moderate shortage.
“Export sales continued their downward trend also experienced in September, with October export sales decreasing 20.72% on October 2015, with an average year on year decrease of 7% in the three months to October. Taking a longer view, export sales have been flat at an average year on year monthly decrease of 0.3% over the last 12 months.” Said Dieter Adam.
“Domestic sales again saw better results, increasing 20.14% on October 2015, and continuing the recent positive streak, with an average year on year growth of 13.9% in the three months to October. Domestic sales have held a positive trend, with an average year on year monthly increase of 5.4% over the last 12 months.
“Despite the fall in export sales, confidence and all three index measures, performance, forecast and change, all improved on September. Market conditions remain the largest reported constraint to growth. Reported profitability has been trending downwards throughout 2016 for manufacturers.
“The recent challenges for exporters reported in our survey was also reflected in the latest Overseas Merchandise Trade numbers from Statistics New Zealand for October. Export values for mechanical machinery and equipment decreased 7% on the previous month, and saw a decrease of 15.62% compared to October 2015. Electrical machinery and equipment exports improved 2.8% on the previous month, but felt a decrease of 13.59% on the same month last year. In the last three months, exports sales for both these categories have been well below the average experienced in the previous year.
Fonterra is on track to become the first global dairy processor to have farm-to-fork electronic traceability.
By 2020 the co-op’s 11,000 supplier farms around the world would be part of the system; any product concerns will be traced anywhere on the supply chain within three hours.
The world-class traceability standards will extend to Fonterra’s 140 plants at 50 sites in nine countries, in seven languages and involving 2000 unique food items.
Already, all New Zealand and Australian-sourced products, representing 74% of total global production, can be electronically traced through the supply chain from manufacturing sites to customers.
While the co-op is not divulging how much the traceability system will cost, Fonterra’s general manager trust in source, Tim Kirk, says the cost pales in comparison to “what we will deliver”.
“It’s a substantial investment by Fonterra,” Kirk told Rural News.
“What we are aiming for now is world-class electronic product traceability, so if we have any concerns about any product we can electronically trace it anywhere in our supply chain within three hours,” says Kirk.
Forgotten deal relied on common sense instead of currency
The advent of New Zealand’s only branded home-grown vehicle the Trekka 50 years ago was the result of a counter trade, a barter, that even today is still staggering in its simplicity. Indeed, the sheer scope of the barter even today is still unrecognised just because it was so straightforward.
New Zealand had a surplus of wool.
Czechoslovakia’s Skoda Works had a surplus of vehicles.
Therein lay the deal.
Until this moment it has remained a secret. We will now reveal how it worked out in practice.
The organisation to see the opportunity was Motor Holdings of Auckland. The company in that era decided to run the deal through an offshoot in Palmerston North known as Five Star Motors.
In those days 50 years ago Palmerston North was an important centre of the auto industry in terms of assembly and distribution.
It was now that the government was approached with the outline of the deal.
The reason that a government approval was necessary was that at this time any import of any kind at all was controlled by quota and licence.
At this time. 50 years ago, the export price of wool declined by 40%.
New Zealand's sheep population continued to rise. Available storage space everywhere was crammed with unsold wool.
But still the government sought to squelch the deal on the grounds that the barter or counter-trade was simply a device to by-pass the rigid import licencing of that era.
But Five Star motors had a trump up its sleeve which it now played carefully.
Fifty percent of the showroom floor price of the New Zealand-ised Skoda would be local input.
Moreover, it would be branded as a New Zealand product and with a New Zealand name.
It was now that the Customs Department began to give way. The Trekka had taken on a political life of its own. The department backed down. The Trekka had arrived.
The skill and patience of the Palmerston North negotiators who implemented the Trekka counter trade had much to do with Palmerston North’s presence as a swinging parliamentary seat between National and Labour.
The rest of the story is relatively well-known. The Trekka, which looked like a boxier version of the Land Rover was one of the cheapest vehicles available in a market where new car prices were high, and cash deposits of up 60 percent were mandatory.
Better still, the Trekka, a forerunner of the SUV, was available off the floor, on low deposit, making new car ownership accessible to many for the first time.
The Trekka though will be remembered as the most successful counter deal ever. Its success was in its simplicity.
The most curious thing about it was that it was so hard to repeat as New Zealand trade began to turn eastward. In spite of Asian customers being notoriously and institutionally bad payers – another topic still rarely talked about, especially departmentally—it proved a hard act to follow.
In our next revelation on the silent, and officially-ignored world of counter-trades, we will detail an example of one that did not work out and very largely because of the absence of official support.
From the MSCNewsWire reporters desk - Wednesfday 7 December 2016
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Wellington Drive Technologies is pleased to announce that following the conclusion of a global beverage brand’s comprehensive technology sourcing process it has been selected as an approved supplier of connectivity hardware for use in the brand’s coolers. This approval allows Wellington to supply its SCS Connect solution to the brand’s network of cooler manufacturers and beverage bottling partners and follows the earlier announcement of the brand’s terms and conditions having being signed.
It should be noted that this approval does not indicate preferred status or determine a minimum level of business; the customer’s network is free to choose from a short list of approved connectivity suppliers, including Wellington.
Wellington continues to work with the brand and its network partners to establish the timing of programmes to adopt SCS Connect and the volumes Wellington will supply over the coming twelve months.
Wellington CEO Greg Allen commented, “We are excited to be selected by this global customer as a connectivity supplier. This is the next step in the customer’s adoption project and we will be working diligently to support the adoption process over the coming twelve months. Our focus continues to be on further innovation of the SCS Connect platform and growing manufacturing capacity and field support capability to support the development of this new and exciting business.”
About Wellington Drive TechnologiesWellington Drive Technologies is a leading global provider of energy efficient electronic motors, airflows solutions and ‘Cloud Connected’ refrigeration control solutions for the commercial refrigeration markets. It serves some of the world’s leading food and beverage brands and refrigerator manufacturers with advanced products and solutions that reduce their costs, improve product sales and reduce energy consumption. Wellington is headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand, and is listed on the New Zealand stock exchange under the ticker symbol NZ:WDT
Press release NZX
Rubrik, the Cloud Data Management company, announced today that Sanitarium Health and Wellbeing, a leading health food manufacturer in Australia and New Zealand best known for its Weet-Bix, UP&GO and So Good brands, has selected Rubrik as its data management platform for production workloads.
"We are keen on adopting innovative and best-of-breed technology that enables our IT team to deliver services seamlessly. Rubrik has delivered game-changing results. We have drastically reduced management overhead, increased data accessibility, and accelerated development and testing of critical enterprise applications," said Alastair Stuart, Infrastructure Services Manager.
"We are excited to have Sanitarium adopt Rubrik Cloud Data Management to deliver management simplicity and scale-out savings," said Bipul Sinha, co-founder and CEO, Rubrik. "With Rubrik, Sanitarium can now provide automated data protection and accelerate development and test systems on one fabric that extends from data center to the cloud."
PALO ALTO, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 12/06/16 --
About RubrikRubrik has developed the world's first Cloud Data Management platform for data protection, search, analytics, archival and copy data management for hybrid cloud enterprises. Fortune 500 companies use Rubrik to manage data at scale while realizing data-driven services anytime, anywhere. Rubrik has been named to Gartner's Cool Vendors in Storage Technologies, 2016 and recognized by Forbes as a Next Billion Dollar Startup. For more information, visit http://www.rubrik.com and follow @rubrikInc on Twitter.
THE Pacific Islands Trade & Investment (PTI) agency successfully met with exporters in Honiara in a bid to open up the New Zealand market to Solomon Islanders.
Twenty attendants from 15 export companies went through a day-long programme with PT&I that is spearheaded by the PT&I (NZ) Auckland branch with support from the Solomon Islands Chamber of Commerce & Industry (SICCI).
Ian Furlong, the trade development manager of PT&I (NZ) described the training a big success and one that has attracted very keen interest compared with the programme in other Pacific countries.
It is the first time for PT&I to engage the Solomon Islands in this programme and is among 10 Pacific island countries to undergo the training this year.
The PT&I team will travel to Port Vila, Vanuatu next.
“There was good attendance and the people were good. Our objective is to help exporters in their business and the training on Thursday was very positive,” said Furlong.
Furlong conducted the training with PT&I COO & Head of Investment, Manuel Valdez.
Participants were briefed on the New Zealand market, the requirements and finances needed as well as selling and buying options.
The programme also equipped participants on effective business planning methods and marketing skills needed.
“At present most (Solomon Islanders) aren’t exporting to the New Zealand market and part of this programme is to encourage this market.
“New Zealand is an ideal market for entrepreneurs in the Solomon Islands and from the training we’ve found that the participants are very interested and want to know more.”
Thursday’s training, however is just the first phase of six steps of the programme.PT&I NZ trade development manager Ian Furlong leading the NZ export programme
PT&I NZ trade development manager Ian Furlong leading the NZ export programme
Some five or six companies of the 15 who attended will be selected to join a sales mission to New Zealand next year. From there the attending companies will learn more of the mission and will get the opportunity to meet buyers where they can build their own relationship.
The programme runs through a timeline until March 2017.
SICCI Business Analyst Charles Persson who joined the programme on Thursday described it as highly professional with a great two-way interaction making attendees think creatively about their products.
“This programme provides excellence skills and networks for businesses to grow and access new markets.”
SICCI acknowledges the importance of exports to the Solomon Islands economy and looks forward to the next stage.
The family that owns the Bluebridge Cook Strait ferry service has sold the bulk of its transport business to an Australian equity company.
Champ Private Equity has agreed to buy Strait Shipping, owner of Bluebridge, and Freight Lines from the Barker family, it was announced on Tuesday.
No price was mentioned in the announcement.
The sale represents the end of an era for the Barker family but was in keeping with founder Jim Barker's wishes, says Strait Shipping managing director spokeswoman and Mr Barker's daughter Sheryl Ellison.
"We are extremely proud of these three leading New Zealand transport businesses and we are excited about their future under a new growth focused ownership," she said in a joint statement.
Mr Barker had been closely involved with the sale until his death in August, Ms Ellison said.
"It was Dad's vision that these businesses would continue to thrive, grow and lead New Zealand's transport industry into the future and we're confident that this sale will ensure this."
Strait Shipping started its Cook Strait service with one ferry in 1992 when Mr Barker wanted a service to transport cattle. It now operates two ferries, the Straitsman and Strait Feronia.
The Barker family will retain ownership of Bulklines and Stocklines, which are not included in the sale.
Palace of the Alhambra, Spain
By: Charles Nathaniel Worsley (1862-1923)
From the collection of Sir Heaton Rhodes
Oil on canvas - 118cm x 162cm
Valued $12,000 - $18,000
Offers invited over $9,000
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242
Mount Egmont with Lake
By: John Philemon Backhouse (1845-1908)
Oil on Sea Shell - 13cm x 14cm
Valued $2,000-$3,000
Offers invited over $1,500
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242