The British Prime Minister Theresa May spoke enthusiastically about the opportunities provided by the Commonwealth during a landmark speech on the British Government’s plans for Brexit.
Speaking at Lancaster House, London, Mrs May said, “I want us to be a truly Global Britain... A country that goes out into the world to build relationships with old friends and new allies alike.
“Even now as we prepare to leave the EU, we are planning for the next biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in 2018 – a reminder of our unique and proud global relationships.”
The next Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting is to be held in the UK with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in attendance. Heads of state and senior officials from all of the 52 counties which make up the Commonwealth will be invited.
Throughout the much anticipated speech, the prime minister announced intentions to lead Britain to a single market with significantly increased trade between Britain and both the remaining EU members and countries outside Europe. She expressed her focus to build free trade agreements between Britain and emerging global superpowers, including some Commonwealth nations.
We want to get out into the wider world, to trade and do business all around the globe. We have started discussions on future trade ties with countries like Australia, New Zealand and India.She said, “We want to get out into the wider world, to trade and do business all around the globe. We have started discussions on future trade ties with countries like Australia, New Zealand and India.”
At the inaugural Commonwealth Trade Ministers Meeting taking place in March, trade opportunities post-Brexit will be high on the agenda. Ministers for economy, trade and industry from across the Commonwealth are expected to attend.
The Secretary-General, Patricia Scotland, welcomed Mrs May’s recognition of trade opportunities with Commonwealth nations. She said, “Countries like India, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Jamaica and Sri Lanka have already asked the Secretariat to undertake a detailed analysis of the trade opportunities which may arise post-Brexit and the ways in which they can deepen their trading engagement with the UK.
The meeting of trade ministers in March will explore the existing opportunities within the Commonwealth and ways in which we can strengthen intra-Commonwealth networks, improve the way we trade and provide mutual support to boost competitiveness of our nations. Our research shows that when both partners are Commonwealth members, trade costs between them are 19 percentage points lower than other country pairs.”
| A PressReleasePoint release | january 17, 2017 |
As New Zealand marks the one-year anniversary of its Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with South Korea, Fonterra Co-operative Group is gearing up to take advantage of huge potential for its dairy products there, particularly cheese.
Since the FTA was signed in December 2015, New Zealand has experienced 16 per cent growth in exports of food and beverage products to Korea.
The country is New Zealand’s fifth largest cheese market, worth US$50 million (NZ$70m) a year – comparable to New Zealand’s cheese trade to the United States.
New Zealand’s new annual duty free quota of 7000 metric tonnes (MT) of cheese to Korea will increase by three per cent a year.
Tariffs on cheddar and block mozzarella will be removed after seven and 12 years respectively, with all cheese tariffs eliminated and quotas removed after 15 years.
Quotas and tariffs on butter, anhydrous milk fat and infant formula will also be phased out over 15 years.
Fonterra has seen strong interest in its products off the back of the Agreement, reflecting the growing demand for high quality dairy in Korea, Jason Murney, Fonterra’s Country Manager Korea, said.
“A lot of our existing customers and new customers are approaching us to develop new business opportunities,” he said.
“The FTA will help Fonterra deepen its commercial relationships in the market over time, as our access continues to increase.
“We have already seen positive results, with government import statistics showing that New Zealand’s share of the Korean cheddar market has grown to over 60 per cent in 2016, up from 50 per cent in 2015.”
So far Fonterra has developed a new cheese specifically designed for use on pizzas, which will be launched in Korea. This will help the Co-operative meet Koreans’ growing taste for pizza and fusion foods.
Fonterra has expanded its Korea team and is investing in a warehouse so that it can import and distribute more high value products itself.
Consumption of dairy products is rising in Korea, as dietary trends follow those of neighbouring Asian countries such as Japan. In 1990 Koreans consumed 43.8kg liquid milk equivalent per capita but by 2014 that had risen to 72.4kg.
The access under the FTA allows Fonterra to invest in product and supply chain innovations, and implement a strategy to transition its Korean business from low risk ingredients to higher value food service.
“The development of the Korean market is absolutely in line with Fonterra’s strategy of moving more milk volumes into higher margin products, thus earning greater returns for our farmer shareholders,” Murney said.
| NZFoodworks Directory | January 18, 2017 |
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Watchdog is determined to extract Foreign Aid facts
The determination of the public spending watchdog the Taxpayers Union collective to extract from the government an explanation for its foreign aid donations to the Clinton fund has only increased with the dissolution of the Clinton Foundation when a final pledge of $5.5. million from New Zealand is still due.
Foreign aid remains a substantially unquestioned sector of public expenditure with the political class only differing on the extent of the budgetary increases.
Each year the proclamation is made by this non-productive sector that New Zealand’s aid expenditure is well below that of other nations which are said to be more conscious of their responsibilities.
In fact New Zealand’s annual aid contribution is generous in comparison with that of these nations being 0.27% of GNI.
Britain for example has only just met its 0.7 percent GNI target for the first time.
New Zealand’s 0.27 percent meanwhile remains a substantially more generous aid budget in terms of GNI than the budgets among other nations of the United States, Japan, Italy, or in Nordic terms, even Iceland.
The Clinton fund donations have something in common with the Taxpayers Union’s other bone of contention which it similarly refuses to let go of.
This is the Middle East stock handling and processing depot designed to offset the National government’s surprise decision, for Gulf importers, to veto licences for the export of live sheep to the Middle East.
In both these instances the public contributions via the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade might reasonably be considered by accounting standards to fall into the insurance category of expenditure.
The insurance being to ensure a favourable attitude to New Zealand in the event of the Clinton family re-occupying the White House, and in the instance of the Gulf states to ensure against a boycott of New Zealand exports.
Deliberately overlooked in New Zealand’s foreign aid expenditure is the matter of New Zealand having no foreign possessions in which to invest its aid.
For example a major Pacific recipient of British aid remains the Pitcairn Islands which are classified as a British overseas territory and which contain immense strategic value in terms of the sea area that the Pitcairn Islands command.
| From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk | Wednesday 18 January 2017 |
Theresa May yesterday gave the clearest indication of Britain’s future direction of travel. Her mantra is “Global Britain” – a phrase we will hear endlessly over coming years. The referendum was a vote “to become even more global and internationalist in action and in spirit”, she said.
Certainly, it was good to hear May speak passionately about the power of free trade, not least as the lethally protectionist Donald Trump becomes president of the United States.
But this flies in face of quitting the single market – collectively the world’s biggest economy and destination for almost half of Britain’s exports. Indeed, there was deep irony that May’s speech was in the same venue, Lancaster House, where Margaret Thatcher once extolled this noble concept of unfettered access.
The truth is that for all May’s fine words, there are significant problems with her vision of “Global Britain”.
The first is in the timescale. No one should doubt that sorting out extraction from the European Union and creating scores of new trading arrangements is a mind-bogglingly complex, delicate process with massive consequences
Yet as the clock ticks on Britain’s departure from the European Union, there will be fierce pressure on the Prime Minister to prove her country can stand alone. Already she has been attacked, often unfairly, for obfuscation.
The danger in trying to rush through the kind of deals that will be needed – both with the EU 27 and others – was put to me by a senior cabinet minister recently.
He gave the example of the bilateral trade deal between China and Switzerland. Concluded just under three years ago, it was hailed as the first between the planet’s emerging superpower and a leading Western economy, the culmination of nine rounds of negotiations, starting in 2010.
But while the deal gave 99.7 per cent of Chinese goods tariff-free access to Swiss markets, it was significantly less generous for trade heading in the opposite direction.
Shortly before conclusion of the talks, the chief Swiss negotiator pleaded for a special dispensation for watchmakers selling to their third biggest market, pointing out that China did not produce luxury timepieces.
His Chinese counterpart smiled. “You may have the watches,” he replied. “But we have time on our side.”
Despite Mrs May’s brave talk of dispensing with a deal if it is on the wrong terms, she is the leader needing to find solutions far more than those she faces over the negotiating table. This means she is more likely to grant the greater concessions.
Similarly, Mrs May talked yesterday of ensuring Britain is a world centre for science and innovation, pledging to continue collaboration with Europe. Quite right, too. Yet already such partnerships are fraying following last year’s vote.
Europe may also have other ideas, focusing on internal collaboration rather than aiding a turncoat. Note how a Swiss threat to end single market participation led to the instant severing of academic ties three years ago.
Yet there is a far more fundamental problem with the prime minister’s plan – which is that its vision of a Global Britain appears to be blurred, to put it kindly.
One of the main factors forcing Britain from the single market, and probably the customs union, is not a desire to embrace free trade. It is Mrs May’s antipathy to immigration, fostered in the Home Office and fuelled by last year’s referendum.
To her credit, she has at least made it clear that controlling immigration comes first. This follows her constriction of border controls at the Home Office and her refusal to exclude students from the Government’s immigration cap, to the detriment of both Britain’s businesses and its world-beating universities.
So it is clear, despite promises of some campaigners, that Brexit will not lead to a significantly more liberal stance for migrants from outside Europe.
Mrs May talked also in grand terms about creating a more global Britain “not for ourselves, but for those who follow. For the country’s children and grandchildren”.
Already we hear much talk of the Anglosphere, as traditionalists promote the cause of deeper alliances with the likes of Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
British and New Zealand leaders have talked of a “high quality” deal, with international trade secretary Liam Fox being despatched to Wellington in coming months. Meanwhile, a few glib words from a slippery president-elect led to huge excitement among Brexiteers.
But if the nation is really focusing on long-term prizes – a sensible idea, given the short-term disruption to business that will follow even a benign Brexit – where is the effort to woo the powerhouses of the future in the developing world?
Not just China and India, important as they are, but the rapidly-growing nations of Africa and Latin America?
Australia, Canada and New Zealand are today worth about $3 trillion, and growing at the same unexciting speed as other mature nations – perhaps 2 per cent over coming decades. New Zealand is smaller economically than Romania, let alone the likes of Argentina, Iran or Nigeria.
As the economist Charles Robertson explained in his book The Fastest Billion, Nigeria alone will be worth $6 trillion by 2050. The entire African continent – its population due to double to two billion by that date – will be worth almost $30 trillion.
To put this figure in perspective, it is bigger than the combined economies of the United States and Eurozone.Elsewhere on CapX
Yet Britain, obsessed with aid not trade, is seeing its share of that growth slip while others from China to India, Brazil and Turkey move in on fast-expanding consumer societies.
This is highly damaging, not least given Britain’s historic links to these areas – the shared language in many parts, the immense soft power of our culture, and even our Premier League football.
Nigerians, for example, are among biggest per capita spenders in our shops – and like several other African nations including Ghana and Kenya, are keen consumers of British education.
Yet from businesspeople to tourists, many Africans have found the costs of obtaining British visas soaring, the hurdles of hostile officialdom rising ever higher, and the consequent attraction of dealing with other nations increasing.
Having been involved in bringing musicians from all over Africa into Britain, I am well aware of visa horrors endured even by some of the continent’s most famous names. And I have heard frequently from middle-class Africans about their disgust at being treated with such disdain by our suspicious system.
So where is the effort to push deals with African countries, despite several being among the world’s fastest-growing economies in recent years? Or a Latin American giant such as Brazil?
Where, in other words, is the focus on the countries and emerging economies that will dominate the future – not just those places that have been our old friends in the past? Where is the recognition that these countries will need access to Britain not just for their goods but for their students and businesspeople, their thinkers and tourists?
If I really thought Brexit would lead to a genuinely global shift in British attitudes, then I would feel far more optimistic about these tumultuous events – and about some of the sentiments in May’s landmark speech.
But at the moment, the self-defeating focus on immigration limits any sense of a genuine global stance.
If Britain really wants to make the most of Brexit, to truly fulfil the Prime Minister’s promise “to become even more global and internationalist in action and in spirit”, it needs to shed the hostility to foreigners that drove so much of the Brexit debate – and genuinely open up to all corners of a fast-changing world.
| A CAPX release by Ian Birrell | January 18, 2017 |
In Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand, developers of industrial automation and machine-to-machine systems are increasingly working together as the industry starts to grow, a new report from Frost & Sullivan has found.
The analysts says that this collaboration will be crucial to the manufacturing value chain as the Industial Internet of Things (IIoT) inches towards efficient adoption.
Currently Singapore and Australia lead IIoT adoption, while other countries are only starting to deploy machine-to-machine (M2M) technologies.
Research from the analyst firm shows that the automotive vertical has the highest M2M software and services market revenues, coming in at 35%.
Direct sales will soon give way to distributors and value-added resellers as they ensure end-to-end service delivery. They will also contribute to a compound annual growth rate of 17.2% between 2015 and 2020.
"The spate of mergers and acquisitions over the past four to five years will continue in the manufacturing software and hardware sectors," says industrial automation and process control industry analyst Krishnan Ramanathan.
"The IIoT environment has many complexities as it involves connecting and securing millions of devices, and analysing the explosive amounts of data generated. Strategic acquisitions could simplify these challenges,” Ramanathan continues.
Frost & Sullivan states that there are growth opportunities in the IoT sphere, as automation and electronic systems suppliers start to realise the potential for independence this technology can bring, particularly in the automotive industry and emergency services.
The analyst firm says that benefits will appear in areas such as savings, resource optimisation and better transparency and control will boost IIoT adoption and facilitate universal standards. Interest is also expected from connectivity service providers.
"Data analytics, which is integral to M2M, will be a game changer in the industry to generate high stakeholder value through improved inventory management and asset monitoring,” Ramanathan concludes.
| A ChannellLife release | January 18, 2017 |
Engineers take home an average of nearly $100,000 a year and their salaries are growing strongly, according to the annual IPENZ Remuneration Survey.
Engineers’ median base salary grew by 6.3 per cent in the year to October 2016. According to Statistics New Zealand, average wage inflation in the year to June 2016 was 1.5 per cent.
Engineers’ median base salary is $92,500, with another $5500 on top of that in bonus or other payments.
The survey reveals that in the very first year of their career, engineers earn an average of $55,000 plus another $2000 in cash benefits.
Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand Chief Executive Susan Freeman-Greene says engineers’ strong salary growth reflects demand for all types of engineers in every part of New Zealand.
“New Zealand desperately needs more engineers. With huge growth and expanding range of opportunities, it’s an exciting time to be an engineer.
“Engineering affects all New Zealanders. As well as being financially rewarding, an engineering career means you can make a positive, tangible difference to our society.
“Engineers are driven by the desire to make the world better. Engineering is at the heart of every major technological and societal breakthrough – from smart phones to greener transport to robotic surgery. Engineering is all about making our lives better, easier and healthier.
“We’re also seeing enormous growth at the intersection of engineering with big data. The ‘internet of things’ connects objects and devices and will radically change how we work and live.”
More than 3200 IPENZ members completed the IPENZ 2016 Remuneration Survey, which was sponsored by RobLawMax Recruitment.
Just over 65 per cent of engineers surveyed also received non-cash benefits. The most common benefit was health insurance (32 per cent), followed by a car park (19 per cent ) and a car (18 per cent).
According to the survey, more engineers live in Auckland than anywhere else, with 38 per cent based there. Canterbury is the next biggest engineering centre, with nearly twice as many engineers as Wellington.
| A releasefrom IPENZ | January 18, 2017 |
New Zealand Oil & Gas has secured a 50.01 per cent holding in its subsidiary, ASX-listed Cue Energy Resources.
“Our controlling interest in Cue provides diversified exposure to Cue's production and exploration interests in Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia,” New Zealand Oil & Gas Chief Executive Andrew Jefferies said.
Cue has production from its interest in the Maari oil field off Taranaki, and from the Sampang PSC in East Java, Indonesia.
It has a portfolio of exploration including the substantial Ironbark prospect in the Carnarvon basin off West Australia, and in Indonesia. “Cue has cut costs significantly, and refined its strategy. All of its shareholders benefit from these changes, which provide a positive reason to increase our holding to over 50 per cent,” Andrew Jefferies said.
New Zealand Oil & Gas acquired 13,514,462 Cue shares in the current financial year at an average cost of 8.32 cents, increasing its interest from 48.11 to 50.01 per cent. The total cost was AU$1,124,338.44.
| An NZOG release | January 17, 2017 |