Mar 09, 2018  - Foreign Affairs Parliamentary Under-Secretary Fletcher Tabuteau is travelling to Latin America this week. He will represent New Zealand at the inauguration of the President-elect of Chile, Sebastian Piñera, and formally open New Zealand’s Embassy in Colombia.

Mar 09, 2018  -  The Commerce Commission has cleared US food company Kraft Heinz to buy Cerebos Food & Instant Coffee and Asian Home Gourmet from Japan's Suntory Beverage & Food, subject to the divestment of some sauce brands.

Japan's Suntory put the units on the block in April last year and announced it had reached a deal with Kraft Heinz in October. The Commerce Commission today granted clearance for the New Zealand part of the global deal on the condition that Kraft's local unit Heinz Wattie divest the licences for the Gregg's brand for the New Zealand supply of red sauce (tomato sauce and ketchup), barbeque sauce and steak sauce, and the F. Whitlock & Sons brand for the supply of Worcestershire sauce in New Zealand.

The regulator said its ruling was based on competition issues in the national markets for the manufacture, importation and wholesale supply of a number of table sauces to supermarkets and the food service industry.

“We believe the merger of the number one and two wholesale suppliers to supermarkets of red sauce, barbecue sauce, steak sauce and Worcestershire sauce would be likely to result in a substantial lessening of competition in each of these markets," Commission chair Mark Berry said in a statement. "However, we consider the divestment offered by Heinz Wattie’s is sufficient to remedy the competitive harm the merger would cause and we have given clearance to the merger subject to the divestment undertaking.”

The commission is satisfied there are no competition concerns in the markets for Asian sauces, condiments, chilli sauce, gravies, powdered beverages, and soy sauce due to a range of factors, including low levels of overlap and the presence of competitive constraint from other suppliers.

| A CommerceCommission release  ||  march09, 2018   |||

Mar 09, 2018  -  Access to Japan for New Zealand fruit is one of the big wins for horticulture from today’s signing of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific (CPTPP), says Mike Chapman, chief executive of Horticulture New Zealand, who is in Chile for the event.

Mar 09, 2018  -  ExportNZ is celebrating the signing of CPTPP in Chile overnight.  ExportNZ Executive Director Catherine Beard says in the context of US protectionist moves and threats of global trade wars, the CPTPP is an exemplar of countries working together for open and free trade.

Mar 9, 2018  - Manufacturing showed solid growth in the December quarter of 2017, with total manufacturing improving 1.8% on December 2016, while manufacturing excluding meat and dairy saw an impressive 3.2% growth on the December 2016 quarter.

Mar 08, 2018  -  Red Stag Group, which runs the largest sawmill in the Southern Hemisphere, plans to invest more than $20 million developing a large-scale cross-laminated timber plant at its wood processing site in Rotorua

Mar 08, 2018  - E tū is extremely concerned to see another local manufacturer shutting up shop and heading overseas.

Mar 08, 2018  - Higher sales volumes for petroleum and coal product manufacturing helped boost manufacturing in the December 2017 quarter, Stats NZ said today.

The total volume of manufacturing sales rose 1.0 percent in the December 2017 quarter compared with the September 2017 quarter, when adjusted for seasonal effects. This follows a 0.4 percent rise in the September 2017 quarter.

Seven of the 13 manufacturing industries saw sales rise in the December 2017 quarter. The largest movements were petroleum and coal product manufacturing, up 17 percent, and meat and dairy product manufacturing, down 2.8 percent.

"The December 2017 quarter's rise in petroleum and coal product manufacturing follows falls in the June and September quarters," manufacturing manager Sue Chapman said. "This is the largest percentage rise since December 2008, and the third-largest since the series began."

Continue to full article here on StatsNZ    ||  March 08, 2018   |||

Mar 08, 2018  - According to the Changzhou Entry-Exit Inspection & Quarantine Bureau, a batch of 1,319 boxes of fruit puree from New Zealand has successfully passed the quarantine examination and has arrived in the Chinese markets.

Mar 08, 2018  -  The capacity to build more quality homes is already within New Zealand, instead of overseas, new research from PrefabNZ shows.