Foreign Minister Murray McCully travels to the Gulf region this weekend for meetings in Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain.
“Our relationships with this important region are growing at a great pace and my visit will be an opportunity to continue discussions about priority areas, including the NZ-GCC FTA, regional security issues and cooperation in areas such as renewable energy,” Mr McCully says.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), comprising Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, is New Zealand’s eighth largest trading partner, with annual two-way trade exceeding $3.2 billion NZ dollars.
“The relationship with the GCC has grown remarkably in a very short space of time, underpinned by forty two air services per week between the Gulf and New Zealand, an increase of 50% since 2013,” Mr McCully says.
"Our economies are highly complementary, and there is huge potential for greater cooperation. The NZ-GCC FTA will help deliver on that potential and I look forward to discussing this opportunity on my visit.”
| A Beehive release | March 06, 2017 ||
New Zealand’s sheep and beef farmers have a profound story to tell about where and how our meat is produced, says Mike Lee.
New Zealand’s sheep and beef farmers are sitting on a grass-fed gold mine.
This is according to Mike Lee, the CEO and founder of New York-based food design and innovation agency Studio Industries, who says this country’s farmers have a great story to tell consumers hungry to know where and how their meat is produced.
Visiting this country, Lee says it is about creating the profound out of the mundane – and for NZ sheep and beef farmers – their mundane is profound.
“New Zealand farmers are grass farmers and it’s about building that image of turning grass into the protein on your plate.
“To me, it’s a romantic image.”
Stories, he says, are what connects people and any story about food is actually a human story – the story about the growers and farmers and where and how they produce food.
“Your story connects the food system with the human experience.”
While historically, stories were exchanged around the campfire, today’s digital “campfire” allows global connections and as Lee says, there are now so many ways consumers can hear and learn about food and the people who produce it.
He urges this country’s red meat industry to identify people who can tell stories on its behalf.
“Empower people as ambassadors to tell your amazing story for you – it’s just a matter of finding the right people.”
Lee says food today is no longer just about sustenance, it is intrinsically linked with social bonds and values. The food consumers eat says something about how they want the world to be, so in essence people are eating their values – and these include the way animals are farmed – although food also needs to deliver on taste.
To consumers, the process is the product and in the case of meat, this is about how animals are grown.
The adage “you are what you eat” has been expanded to “you are what you eat eats”- and this is where NZ’s grass-fed story is so valuable.
In New York, grass-fed meat fetches a premium and is a selling point on restaurant menus and in bone-broth cafes.
Thanks in part to the vilification of sugar, meat is now trendy, and butchers the new rock stars. In the US, there has been a resurgence of craft butcheries such as the “The Meat Hook” in New York city, where customers can watch carcases being boned out and gather information about how to make use of every part of the animal - not just the primal cuts. Even the meat sections in supermarkets are being transformed into old-fashioned butcher shops, where the carcases are cut in full view of the public, rather than being hidden away.
Lee says the “eat local” movement is acknowledging that local is not always better and how a product is produced can offset disadvantages of distance – which again favours NZ red meat producers.
| An article published on Beef+Lamb | March 01, 2017 ||
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Mar 28: Infrastructure key as MoC signed
Mar 23: Horticultural stalwarts win Farm Environment Awards
Mar 21: Horticultural stalwarts win Farm Environment Awards
Mar 21: Beef prices boosted by US demand
Mar 17: New Zealand-Argentina agricultural agreement signed
Mar 17: NZ wool market improves at double auction
Mar 16: Ravensdown to make early rebate payment
Mar 14: Bottled water debate misses mark says Nick Smith
Mar 14: SFO probing free-range claims
Mar 13: NZ agri innovation helping meat exports to Asia's diverse markets
Mar 11: Award for 'can-do' essential oil ventureAward for 'can-do' essential oil venture
Mar 10: 'Sexy sector' seeking staff with tech skills'Sexy sector' seeking staff with tech skills
Mar 09: Price drop predicted for milk
Mar 08: Fruit sales boost wholesale trade stats
Mar 07: Farmers threaten to desert Westland Milk Products for Fonterra
Mar 07: Client-centred upgrade for GDT Events
Mar 06: Thirst for beer drives growth for hops
Mar 06: New venison plant ‘not able milestone’
Mar 06: Primary industry careers on show
The strategic view that Britain needs to be in the EU remains universal among New Zealand strategists. However the Leaves did not vote geopolitically but on domestic considerations including, apparently, resentment of immigration and of the unequal gains from trade. New Zealand has little alternative but to accept the direction the Brits are taking, albeit with regret.
Withdrawing from the EU is proving more difficult than anyone anticipated. Almost every week there is a revelation of an additional complication. Two years to negotiate the deal is just absurd, indicative of how little David Cameron, the previous British prime minister, had thought things through.
I do not think any informed person – anywhere in the world – takes seriously Theresa May’s view that Brexit represents no retreat, but rather that it will be the making of a ‘truly global Britain’ and that as a result the country will be ‘more outward-looking than ever before.’ The hard fact is that, as every New Zealander working in the international sector knows, being a small country isolated from the big trading blocs is a huge challenge. Sure, Britain is bigger than New Zealand but small compared to China, the EU and the US.
New Zealand’s interests will be challenged by Brexit. A couple of examples. We are currently in early negotiations with the EU over a free trade agreement. Almost certainly they will be delayed because the EU will be focusing on the Brexit negotiations; in any case they were going to be tortuous because they involve every member of the EU agreeing to the deal which, if it is of any significance to us, is going to affect their key farm interests.
Second, because of Brentry and subsequent multilateral negotiations, such as the Tokyo and Uruguay rounds, we already have various trade deals with the EU. However they are not with its individual members. What happens to them when one leaves?
For instance, there is a New Zealand sheep meats quota for the whole 28 countries; about two fifths of our lamb goes to Britain. That quota is ‘bound’, in effect it has a standing in international law and cannot be unilaterally abrogated. What happens to it if Britain leaves? We could insist that we will continue to have access for the whole quota to the remaining 27 countries and then negotiate a separate one with Britain outside the EU in exchange for trade concessions here. I imagine the EU will want us to agree that the quota be divided between the EU27 and Britain. The permutations are enormous; it will be a miracle if they are settled within two years, given there are many other examples like this involving other commodities and other countries.
So tiny New Zealand will be directly involved in some aspects of the Brexit negotiations even if we find it hard to get the EU 27 to focus on an FTA. Meanwhile, according to EU rules, Britain cannot begin negotiating trade agreements on its own behalf until after it leaves the EU.
During the Brentry negotiations, half a century ago, New Zealand’s negotiating strength included some ‘moral’ weight. At that time more people living in New Zealand said they were British-born than said they were Maori, underlining emotional attachments between the two countries. But those attachments have become attenuated with the external and internal diversification.
I won’t say we had a veto on Brentry in 1973, but undoubtedly the British government of the day wanted our support because it feared the anti-Brentry forces would use New Zealand to intensify their campaign.
That won’t happen this time. Instead of moral considerations we are going to have to depend upon the WTO rules. In principle that should mean that we will be no worse off – except where we have better deals than the legal bindings. And undoubtedly, we will suffer if the British economy suffers, as it is expected to. (However, except for some products, ties of sentiment mean New Zealanders tend to overestimate the importance of the British economy to us today.)
Moreover with a few exceptions, such as the RCEP (the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership of 14 Asian nations and Australia and New Zealand), other international trade deals are going to go be put on hold. That particularly affects our campaign to reduce world food protectionism in the interest of consumers and efficient farmers.
Of course, Brexit may not go ahead. A possible scenario is that when the deal is agreed, Britain will have a second referendum offering a real choice between the specific Brexit terms and Remain. May’s ‘hard-Brexit’ is designed to meet the demands of the extreme Brexiters, especially over migration, but it sacrifices a lot to do that. The softer Brexiters may reject the hard-Brexit terms. Already there is a growing group of doubters – Bregretters.
Although there are hard liners among the other 27 EU, who will not offer Britain an easy deal, one hopes commonsense will mean the 27 will leave open the option of Britain abandoning Brexit when the terms are settled and it becomes evident (to just about everyone) how painful the exit option is.
What may be crucial may be this year’s elections in France and the Netherlands, where immigration issues are expected to play an important role. Supposing that the electoral outcomes do not totally disrupt EU unity, it seems likely, nonetheless, that the EU will soften its commitment to free movement of labour. That would make it easier for Bregretters to change their minds.
Whatever, New Zealand’s global trading ambitions – especially over better access for its farmer products to protected markets – are going to have to be put on hold. But we will still pursue quality trade deals whenever the opportunities arise even if there are less of them.
| By Brian Easton published on pundit | March 6, 2017 ||
This is a follow up ‘Brentry: How New Zealand Coped’, setting out some of the challenges which face New Zealand today.
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Aluminium, beef lift commodity index
According to a report from China’s central government, production of steel and aluminium by producers in over two dozen cities will drop significantly over the winter months. The move is seen as another salvo in the ongoing battle against smog.
The document, which is a joint statement from the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP), Finance Ministry, National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the National Energy Bureau, in conjunction with local governments, carries a date of February 17, also includes plans to limit coal use in Beijing as well as pulling back on coal transport to northern China.
According to the document, steel producers in the provinces of Hebei, Shanxi, Shandong, Henan, Tianjin, and within the city of Beijing will be called upon to cut production in half during the peak heating months between November and February, inclusive. The amount of steel capacity to be curtailed is dependent upon the emission cuts to be made in the region, per the report.
The document details cuts in aluminium capacity by over thirty percent and alumina by nearly the same amount in those cities as well. Cuts in Hebei, Henan, and Shandong are particularly significant, as seventy percent of China’s total aluminium production is located in those three provinces.
The cuts would see China’s yearly steel output fall by 8 percent per annum and aluminium output lowered by 17 percent per year, according to calculations performed by Reuters, the news service that originated the story.
In addition to capacity cuts, the transportation of coal will be limited to railroad in Hebei and Tianjin, eliminating trucks as a method for transport starting in September. As the lion’s share of aluminium production in China is powered by coal-fired power plants, the implication for aluminium production is obvious.
China has long been battling smog, and this winter’s air quality has proven to be the worst in decades. Heavy industry, coal burning for heat in private homes, and increased transportation has taken a toll on air quality in cities like Beijing, which finds itself engulfed in even worse levels of smog than normal.
| From Aluminium Insider | March 01, 2017 ||