Raimondi Cranes, an Italian equipment manufacturer owned by Saudi Arabia’s KBW Investments, has appointed Heavy Lift Designs (HLD) as its official agent in New Zealand.
Wellington-based HLD will represent Raimondi Cranes in New Zealand’s North and South Islands, conducting all installation and dismantling procedures.
Founded in 2014 by managing director, Eng Blake Hammon, HLD provides engineering services for New Zealand’s heavy lifting segment, following previous success in New South Wales, Australia.
The firm’s service offering includes technical lift planning, erection, dismantling, and site planning, as well as feasibility assessments, third-party verification, and equipment sourcing.
Commenting on heavy lifting-related activities in his domestic market, Hammon said: “I see New Zealand as the opportune place for HLD to launch new technologies; there is substantial activity in the construction and engineering sectors with room for a successful entrepreneurial-driven market entry.”
Under the agency of HLD, Raimondi Cranes’ topless tower and luffing jib models will be made available to clients across New Zealand, together with aftersales and technical support.
READ: Saudi-owned Raimondi supplies six cranes for French uni project
“HLD’s entire value proposition is based on bringing modern engineering solutions, developed and drafted with precision and care, to the construction industry,” Hammon added. “Raimondi Cranes is a fantastic, forward-thinking crane manufacturer; for this reason, we actively pursued the Raimondi agency appointment, and we’re looking forward to bringing the company’s highly reputable, solution based products to market.”
Raimondi Cranes’ partnership with HLD in New Zealand follows recent appointments of representatives in South Germany and Great Britain.
The moves form part of the manufacturer’s broader strategy to increase its market share in global construction hubs, according to commercial director, Mauro Masetti.
| A ConstructionWeekOnline release || August 14, 2017 |||
New Zealand will host APEC in 2021, with Leaders’ Week to be held in Auckland from November 8 to 14, Foreign Minister Gerry Brownlee says.
“With Auckland also set to host the America’s Cup, 2021 will be a big year for the country’s biggest city,” Mr Brownlee says.
“We are announcing the dates as early as possible to provide some clarity for planning, which is already under way.
“APEC 2021 will be the largest event ever hosted by the New Zealand government and is a wonderful opportunity for New Zealand to shine on the international stage.
“APEC will bring world leaders to New Zealand and create significant opportunities to promote our economic interests with trading nations including China, the US and Japan.
“The Asia-Pacific is the fastest growing economic region in the world and APEC is its leading economic forum.
“APEC member economies account for almost half of all global trade, and more than 70 per cent of New Zealand’s goods and services are exported to APEC economies.
“It is expected that APEC will attract up to 22,000 international attendees to the 12 significant APEC-related events held throughout the year, with around 10,000 attendees expected for Leaders’ Week.
“While Auckland is confirmed to host the Leaders’ Week, we intend to spread meetings and events across other large cities, including Christchurch, to showcase the very best of New Zealand’s capability, innovation, culture and amazing landscapes,” Mr Brownlee says
| A Beehive release || August 15, 2017 |||
If you hanker for a great holiday with no traffic and only two hours from Auckland, talk to your Mondo travel specialist about beautiful Norfolk Island. The only traffic jam you'll ever experience on Norfolk Island is the occassional cattle crossing the road! We are headed there in October.... Watch this space for pics, stories and updates. Experience the peace and serenity of Norfolk Island for yourself: bit.ly/norfolkislandnz #norfolkisland #norfolkislandtourism #norfolkislandnaturally #2hoursfromauckland #travel #travelmagazine #letstravel #letstravelmag #editorslife #traveleditor #travelblogger #travelwriter #travels #travelpics #travelgram @norfolk.island @visitnorfolkisland #mondotravelnz
McConnell Dowell has been awarded the contract for Te Mato Vai Stage 2 which includes the design and construction of 10 water intake upgrades.
Awarding of the contract marks a milestone in the progress of the Te Mato Vai project and comes after consent was granted from landowners of all 10 intakes to undertake surveys to provide information for detailed designs.
The scope of Te Mato Vai Stage 2 involves the upgrade of water inlets, construction of treatment facilities, additional storage capacity as well as the replacement of trunk mains and some improvements to access roads.
As part of their design-build contract, the McConnell Dowell team will undertake preliminary surveys, geotechnical investigation, develop detailed designs and do construction.
They will also operate the system with the Cook Islands Government for 12 months at completion of construction as part of a training and capacity building exercise, as well as ensuring the supply meets performance requirements.
McConnell Dowell worked on the Avatiu Port development project for the Cook Islands government and Ports Authority, completed in 2013.
A spokesman for the project said the company’s existing relationships with local resources and the people of Rarotonga would be valuable in the successful implementation of the Te Mato Vai Stage 2 works.
They are relationships that Finance minister Mark Brown says will see the government’s capital investment flow back into the local community and workforce.
A core team from McConnell Dowell will be based in Rarotonga to oversee the Stage 2 works, which will be carried out mostly by local contractors and workers.
GHD New Zealand is the engineer to the contract, and will have a full time presence in Rarotonga for the full duration of construction.
The company is responsible for managing and monitoring the works with regards to performance and compliance to all relevant regulations and quality standards, on behalf of the Cook Islands Government.
Brown acknowledges the lengthy and complex tender process undertaken between GHD New Zealand, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Management, the Crown Law Office and the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, before McConnell Dowell was identified as preferred tenderer on May 23.
Since that time, a final scope has been negotiated for a contract price acceptable to the Cook Islands government.
The contract is worth $34.6 million, and is the outcome of a well prepared construction plan with a scope of work that maximises value for money and will deliver a safe and reliable water supply to the people of Rarotonga.
During discussions, much consideration was given to ensuring that guarantees and warranties for the treatment facilities are in place and that the system can be managed and operated with minimal maintenance.
This negotiation phase also reduced the contract price by $4.6 million without any detrimental effect on the project outcomes.
The spokesman said the tender process had established a productive relationship between the Cook Islands Government, GHD New Zealand, and McConnell Dowell.
The contract is expected to be signed in the next few weeks with preliminary surveys starting shortly afterwards.
A new phase of landowner meetings will be undertaken over coming months, to discuss survey findings, develop the detailed designs and obtain landowners’ consent to proceed with construction.
“Government will continue to work very closely with landowners not only throughout the project but also far into the future as part of the upkeep of this national investment,” says Brown.
According to the project programme the detailed designs will be complete before the end of 2017, with the physical works scheduled to start in 2018. The work will take around two and a half years to complete.
The 10 intakes are to be upgraded are Avana, Avatiu, Matavera, Ngatoe, Papua, Taipara, Takuvaine, Totokoitu, Tupapa and Turangi.
| A Cook Islands News release || August 14, 2017 |||
They’re off – on a toilet roll race! Flight attendants organised passengers to complete in a toilet paper roll race to see which side of the aisle would be allowed to get off the plane first.
The flight was a long-haul US domestic flight on Southwest Airlines. The Raleigh to Denver flight is about four hours long (roughly the same length as Sydney to Darwin) and attendants decided to pit passengers against each other mid-flight.
The contest involves passengers speedily passing a roll of toilet paper over their heads, row to row, back along the plane until it reaches the last passenger. If the roll tears, your side loses.
Passenger Marcie Villarreal filmed the race last month. It has been posted on Facebook ad YouTube.
“I’ve been flying different airlines my whole life, and just when I think I’ve seen it all, your flight attendants decide to do a ‘toilet paper race,’” wrote Villarreal, who was on the winning side.
“Hands down the funnest flight ever and I was even travelling with my baby. You rock, Southwest! Keep doing what you’re doing!”
Curiously, it’s not the first such midair stunt. Several other clips of airline toilet roll races have been posted on social media, in 2008 and again in 2014. Southwest appears to be the world leader in this unusual event – it features in every clip.
| An eGlobal Travel media release written by Peter Needham || August 14, 2017 |||
The creator of an inexpensive floating water monitor suspects the Government is unwilling to fund a device that would show how bad our water is Lynn Grieveson reports. Lynn writes on environment and education, is sub-editor at Newsroom Pro and a contributing photographer to Newsroom.
Regional councils are eyeing up an experimental floating water monitor that would enable them to "stake out" rivers and pinpoint polluters - but only if the developers can raise enough through donations for beta testing and commercial release.
Wairarapa farmer Grant Muir yesterday launched a PledgeMe campaign to raise cash for beta testing of the award-winning 'RiverWatch' device he and biologist son James developed in conjunction with Victoria University.
Muir said he suspected the Government was not keen on having the true state of New Zealand's rivers, lakes and harbours revealed because it knows there is a huge spend needed on infrastructure as well as potential limits on agricultural intensification.
"They know what's happening and all we can think is that up to now there hasn't been a willingness by government to get this data out there. I can tell you right now the data is bad, and is probably the worst in our cities, it really is," Muir said.
"I used to think it was mainly the farmers, but it's not. Some of the worst pollution is happening right under our noses … there are major problems in Manukau Harbour with heavy metals, E. coli, sewerage - and Porirua harbour is a cesspool, an absolute cesspool," he said.
"I think that is one of the reasons why we haven't received government input because government is thinking, firstly, 'It's going to cost us too much because we know the infrastructure in our cities isn't up to standard' – and, 'Gosh, what are we going to do if dairy production goes down?'"
"So the Government is looking at it that they are going to get hit at both ends."
Muir's solar powered device wirelessly uploads GPS-tagged data from five probes measuring water temperature, turbidity (murkiness), dissolved oxygen, conductivity and PH levels. It was awarded the 2016 World Wildlife Fund Conservation Innovation Award.
Grant Muir submerges a prototype RiverWatch monitor into water. Photo: Lynn Grieveson
Muir said they were now collaborating with ESR on E. coli testing capability, and he was still hopeful of funding through MBIE, but, for now, "this has all been funding through volunteers and people who care about water, basically".
The developers hope to raise $50,000 through the PledgeMe campaign to pay for 10 devices to be tested at locations across the country.
"If we can build this with a group of third year students at Victoria University imagine what we can make if they give us a couple of decent electronics and software people and a bit of funding," Muir said.
"We are going to continue to run our own boat at the moment until someone comes along and says 'look, we'll give you a hand'".
The answer councils are looking for?
Each floating monitor would cost around $2500. It doesn’t yet include probes for nitrates as those currently available are too expensive and unsuited to New Zealand rivers, Muir said. He said he expected some good nitrate probes to come out of China in the next 18 months (which might add around $1000 to the cost of each monitor) but in the meantime the data provided by the probe provided a useful picture of a waterway's health.
"Between those five parameters we can tell a lot about what is actually going on in the water. Particularly if you are looking at high concentrations of nitrate or phosphates one of the first things to disappear when you have those concentrates is dissolved oxygen. Also conductivity changes and so does PH. By running algorithms across those five parameters we can actually determine a lot of other things that are going on in the water," he said. The invention has caught the interest of regional councils, which are adding up the likely cost of increased responsibilities over water quality. Some councils have already bought imported monitors for $25,000 each but Muir said they had proved unreliable in New Zealand rivers.
So now we've got regional councils saying: 'we want to stake out our river system'
"The regional councils know that they are going to be mandated with the job of testing for water quality no matter what government gets in [after the election]," Muir said.
"When you look at the economics of sending staff out with just a tester wand, a meter, you plug it in the water and get a one-off reading, that's really expensive. So, when we came in with this idea all of a sudden everyone was saying 'Hallelujah, this is the answer we'd been looking for' - something that can be deployed and stay in the water for a long period of time, it doesn't have to have someone going out to get the data from it, that data can be sent automatically to the website or they can retrieve it very easily.
"So now we've got regional councils saying: 'We want to stake out our river system'," (by putting water quality monitors at the source of the river and then at points downstream).
In urban areas they would be able to use the system to pinpoint 'single point emitters" such as factories or individuals discharging pollutants into waterways, and use the data to take them to court.
Muir said farmers were interested in the device as well, as it would enable them to measure whether mitigation measures such as riparian planting were having an effect, as well as helping them prove they were not causing pollution.
"A lot of the farmers say, 'The thing that gets my goat is, hang on, I just spent $50,000 on my farm, I fenced it, riparian planted it but old Joe upstream hasn't spent a cent and all that dirty water is flowing through my place and if the regional council tested down here they are going to blame me'," he said.
Muir said farmers would also benefit from regional councils using it as a lower-cost solution.
"If the regional councils have to go out and do the testing they will charge the farmer for that testing, the end-user is ultimately going to receive a bill for the water tests. Farmers are going to actually be billed by the regional councils for water testing. It is far better that the farmer would have their own device and be able to do that testing, and because that device can link to the internet that data can be sent directly to a portal that the regional council monitors."
Recreational users and tourists would also benefit, with real-time water quality information publicly available on the RiverWatch website, and searchable by waterway.
"We are happy to share our toys with anyone to get our data out there. I just wish few other parties would share toys with us as well," Muir said.
| A Newsroom release by Lynn Grieveson. Lynn writes on environment and education, is sub-editor at Newsroom Pro and a contributing photographer to Newsroom. || August 15, 2017 |||
Kiwi companies are queueing up to do business with Vietnam and other similar sized Asian countries, a leading New Zealand tech businessman says.
Mitchell, chair of NZTech, FinTechNZ and a New Zealand Trade & Enterprise (NZTE) beachheads advisor in technology business for the ASEAN region, has just returned from a major Kiwi business exploration trip to Vietnam.
Pham has also been advising the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and the Asia New Zealand Foundation.
He says Kiwi tech sector must be an active part of the New Zealand story, presence and engagement in South East Asia to gain more brand awareness and business traction in the region.“We had huge engagement from the Vietnamese market. Everyone was interested in what New Zealand has to offer across the board,” he says
“But it is critical for Kiwi companies to follow-through after these visits to progress relationships into business. Sadly, not enough companies follow through in the past, which resulted in business contacts in the region who went all out to engage with visiting delegations ending up feeling let down by us afterwards.
“As far as Kiwi technology goes. We are not an island. It would be smart and important to be there alongside other NZ industry sectors which have been doing business development in Asia for much longer and therefore are bigger, stronger, better known, more visible, more active and more connected in the region.”
Pham says the Kiwi Connection Tech Hub in Ho Chi Minh City and Augen Software Group in New Zealand have been working with University of Auckland, the ASEAN-New Zealand Business Council (ANZBC), AUT university, KEA, Asia NZ Foundation, NZTE, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade, the NZ Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam and other businesses to grow trade in Vietnam.
“This latest trip which has only just ended was the largest ever NZ Inc. collaboration and contingent to the ASEAN region.
“This has resulted in more than 80 leading Kiwi business entrepreneurs, executives, managers and educators across different industry sectors visited and engaged with the Vietnam market, some also went on to Thailand.
“Businesses in the group included Augen, AUT, GlidePath and new entrants to the region such as MEO-Air and Fluent Scientific.
“Vietnam continues to grow in income and consumption appetite for food and beverages, fast-moving consumer goods. Other high-growth industries include traditional and high-tech manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare, education, financial services, transport and logistics.
“All of these sectors require technology and know-how to support their rapid growth and advancement, so there are many opportunities for Kiwi tech businesses who serve these sectors back home or elsewhere.
“It is vital that Kiwi businesses do their market research and engage in rigorous on-the-ground validation of their target customers in the region,” Pham says.
Vietnam has a population of about 95 million and 60 percent of its people are younger than 30 years old. It has the fastest growth in internet connections and number of mobile users in the ASEAN region. Ho Chi Minh City is the geographic epicentre of the region’s centres of commerce and industry.
| From the MSCTravel reporters' desk with MakeLemonade and FinTechNZ || August 15, 2017 |||
An exciting new development in the fight against graffiti vandalism has hit Australian shores.
The brain child of Solar Gard Saint-Gobain Australia’s very own General Manager, Robert Hamilton, is a film that will not only potentially save tax payers millions of dollars each year in graffiti removal but is also safe to use around the family home to protect much loved table tops from “junior” mishaps.
Solar Gard GraffitiTidy is a durable protective film, that when applied to your smooth surfaces, will provide a durable non-stick barrier that is hydrophobic, in that it reacts by deterring liquids in a similar to the way to that of a non-stick pan. Its low surface energy means that even permanent marker pen can simply be wiped off with a dry cloth! According to the *Keep Australia Beautiful website, the estimated cost of graffiti and other forms of vandalism to the Australian community is a massive $2.7 billion a year.
In NSW alone, a total of 46, 404 incidents of graffiti were reported to Police in the five-year period from 2009-2014. One quarter (25.9%) of these offences were committed on residential dwellings, followed by public transport (18.4%), business/commercial (17.1 %) and outdoor/public places (14.9%).
As the film is clear, vandals won’t even know GraffitiTidy has been installed. The film allows their pen and paint graffiti to be applied, leaving hoons satisfied they have done their damage and move on.
Clean up though, is where GraffitiTidy saves valuable time, expense and effort with easy graffiti removal. “GraffitiTidy provides the hassle free solution for tagging and spray painting that commercial building owners, councils, schools and other private enterprises have been waiting for” said Solar Gard Saint-Gobain Australasia’s General Manger, Robert Hamilton, “And we are really excited to be the very first country to receive this state of the art new product”.
It’s a cost effective solution that provides 24 hour protection to property such as, but not limited too, bus shelters, public transport, street signs, garage doors and retail store front”. Learn more at SolarGard.co.nz #solargard #graffititidy #specialtywindowfilms
Follow this link for more information on on this and the full range of Solar Gard products.
To discuss your requirements you can reach Ross Eathorne on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.or by phone on 09 441 0040 ||| August 14, 2017 |||