Founded by Max Farndale 1947 - 2018
SHANGHAI, Dec. 14, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Goodman Group (Goodman or the Group) is pleased to announce that it has secured five new major customer commitments totalling 98,120 sqm at the Goodman Pudong Airport Logistics Park (GPALP). The leasing success achieved reflects the continued robust demand for well located, high quality warehouse and distribution facilities in and around key gateway cities like Shanghai.
Located next to the Pudong International Airport's third runway, which is designated for airfreight only, the park is well serviced by strong transportation infrastructure. It comprises two-storey ramped up warehouses with sustainable features such as LED lighting, low-e glass curtain walls and steel structures made out of recycled materials.
The five customers who have recently committed to GPALP are:
Kristoffer Harvey, Chief Executive Officer, Greater China, Goodman said, "The strong demand for space at the Goodman Pudong Airport Logistics Park underscores our commitment to making it the preferred choice for companies wanting to locate in excellent proximity to China's second busiest airport. We are pleased to welcome so many renowned customers to this facility and to be able to meet their requirements with our modern logistics solutions and high quality customer service."
China Postal Express & Logistics, one of the park's new customers, committed to a total of 19,769 sqm.
Wang Aiping, General Manager, Shanghai Branch, China Postal Express & Logistics said, "Shanghai Postal Express & Logistics is a modern and integrated state-owned express delivery and logistics company that professionally operates and manages Shanghai's postal express and logistics services. Our business covers all of China and more than 200 countries overseas. Goodman has a strong reputation in the market due to the high quality of its warehouses, as well as its excellent property management capabilities. We are very honoured to occupy Goodman's best-in-class facility, which has been built in line with the highest standards. The adequate amount of space provided by the Goodman Pudong Airport Logisitics Park will play a key role in helping Shanghai Postal Express & Logistics improve its management and operational capabilities, boost its efficiency and provide integrated customer services. Meanwhile, Shanghai Postal Express & Logistics will also offer convenient, rapid, safe and reliable express delivery and logistics services to all segments of society."
About Goodman
Goodman Group is an integrated property group with operations throughout Australia, New Zealand, Asia, Europe, the United Kingdom and the Americas. Goodman Group, comprised of the stapled entities Goodman Limited, Goodman Industrial Trust and Goodman Logistics (HK) Limited, is the largest industrial property group listed on the Australian Securities Exchange and one of the largest listed specialist investment managers of industrial property and business space globally.
Goodman's global property expertise, integrated own+develop+manage customer service offering and significant fund management platform ensures it creates innovative property solutions that meet the individual requirements of its customers, while seeking to deliver sustainable long-term returns for its Partners.
| A Goodman release | Dec 14, 2016 |
Energy and Resources Minister Simon Bridges today opened public consultation on a new national renewable energy strategy.
The draft replacement of the New Zealand Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy proposes actions that will help New Zealand make the most of its clean, renewable energy sources.
“Energy efficiency and increased use of our renewables are critical for our environment and our economy,” Mr Bridges says.
“This strategy will aim to steer businesses, individuals and the Government towards taking actions that enable our transition towards a smarter, lower-carbon and more productive economy.”
The strategy covers the period 2017-2022. Its actions and targets focus on three priority areas: transport; the heat used in industrial and manufacturing processes; and innovative and efficient use of electricity.
“These areas offer the greatest potential for emissions and efficiency savings, which can improve economic growth, energy security and affordability, and help New Zealand meet its climate change commitments,” Mr Bridges says.
”It also complements Government initiatives already underway such as the Electric Vehicles Programme, which will take advantage of New Zealand’s renewable electricity and reduce transport emissions by accelerating the uptake of electric vehicles.”
The strategy was developed in consultation with a range of targeted stakeholder groups with the public consultation process seeking views to inform the development of the final strategy, for release in 2017.
Submissions can be made at www.mbie.govt.nz/info-services/sectors-industries/energy/energy-strategies. They close 5pm, 7 February 2017.
Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee announced today that approval has been given for the New Zealand Defence Force to progress work on the Consolidated Logistics project at a cost of $130 million over five years.
“New Zealand’s Defence Force holds a wide range of equipment, all of which needs to be stored, maintained and serviced so that it is ready and safe to use when required,” Mr Brownlee says.
“However the systems presently used to do this need to be brought into the modern age.
“More efficient management will allow the Defence Force to reduce the volumes of some equipment held and to be more responsive to new technologies and threats.
“This in turn ensures the capital invested in Defence is able to be focussed on the equipment of highest priority.
“In recent times many other countries have modernised the way their militaries manage logistics, getting greater value for money by managing their equipment holdings more efficiently.
“The New Zealand Defence Force will implement the best of these proven systems,” Mr Brownlee says.
The investment will not change how larger Defence assets, such as ships and aircraft, are managed, as these large systems are already well managed.
However smaller asset types, including vehicle fleets and firearms, will be centralised into regional pools where they can be stored and more efficiently maintained.
“Adopting this approach will create an opportunity to shift around $1.6 billion of capital over the next 25 years from inefficient holdings to a focussed investment on priority capabilities.
“This is about using Defence Force assets better and ensuring taxpayer’s money is being well spent,” Mr Brownlee says.
The Defence Force will now complete plans to upgrade and build new infrastructure, such as storage facilities and maintenance workshops at Linton in the Manawatu and at Burnham near Christchurch. Some of the existing facilities date back to the 1940s.
“Defence will also modernise its computer inventory systems so that all stock holdings can be tracked and their usage history analysed,” Mr Brownlee says.
Nearly all of the implementation costs will be contracted to local industry or to organisations with a local subsidiary or partner. Around $50 million is budgeted for construction projects.
The organisational changes proposed, and outsourcing of maintenance, repair and warehousing functions will create at least 50 new jobs, mostly in the Wellington region and at Linton and Burnham.
According to a report in the Australian Financial Review (AFR), well-known Australian businessman Andrew Liveris has been recruited by Donald Trump to help bring back American manufacturing jobs.
The chief executive of US multinational giant Dow Chemical, Liveris was appointed chair of the President-elect’s American Manufacturing Council.
Liveris has led the manufacturing giant Dow for the past 12 years in Michigan, a so-called “rust belt” state where working class voters helped propel Trump to his presidential election win last month, noted the AFR.
Liveris is also a close acquaintance of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and is a member of the Turnbull government’s Industry Growth Centres Advisory Committee.
He was described by Donald Trump as “one of the most respected businessmen in the world”, according to the AFR.
Darwin-born Liveris has gone on record to claim that US economic growth could rise to 4 per cent per year.
“If the US economy can hit 4 per cent growth, that’s not only good for America, it’s good for the world,” Liveris told the AFR.
The son of Greek migrants, 62-year old Liveris is currently finalising a $US130 billion merger and of Dow and DuPont, a deal that is expected to be executed early next year if European authorities approve it.
| Manufacturers' Monthly | Dec 12, 2016 |
Transport Minister Simon Bridges has made some appointments to the Maritime New Zealand (MNZ) Board.
Commercial law partner, Kylie van Heerden, has been appointed as a new member.
“Ms van Heerden has experience advising clients on corporate and commercial matters, including company compliance and governance. Her appointment will bring commercial legal skills and an injection of fresh energy to this Board,” Mr Bridges says.
Mr Bridges has also reappointed Belinda Vernon who has been a member since May 2013 and chairs its Audit and Risk Committee.
“Ms Vernon’s reappointment will provide continuity, and she brings financial and business skills in addition to her shipping industry experience,” Mr Bridges says.
Maritime New Zealand is a Crown entity established under the Maritime Transport Act 1994 for the safety, security and environmental protection of New Zealand’s coastal and inland waterways.
Its Board has five members appointed by the Minister of Transport.
The Government is committed to building on its proven track record of strong economic and fiscal management, Acting Finance Minister Steven Joyce says.
“New Zealand is in an enviable position compared with most developed countries,” Mr Joyce says. “We are making good economic progress. We’re achieving steady growth, keeping debt well under control, and delivering fiscal surpluses.
“The Government’s fiscal priorities remain unchanged. We’ll continue to keep a tight rein on spending to drive growing OBEGAL surpluses and reduce net debt to around 20 per cent of GDP in 2020.”
Mr Joyce says the Kaikōura earthquakes last month highlighted the importance of delivering on the Government's fiscal strategy.
“Keeping on top of spending and paying down debt in the good times ensures we are in a good position to cope with economic shocks and natural disasters, and allows the Government to support New Zealand communities through challenging times,” Mr Joyce says.
“Last week’s economic and fiscal update is forecasting this good performance to continue. Real GDP growth is expected to average around 3 per cent over the five year forecast period.
“Unemployment is forecast to drop to close to 4 per cent by 2020/21, with another 150,000 jobs to be created over the same period. Average wages are expected to continue rising faster than inflation – up another $7,500 to $66,000 by 2020/21.
“These forecasts are of course just forecasts, but they provide confidence that New Zealand is on the right economic path, and is well placed to cope with the ongoing fragile nature of the world economy.”
“This Government is committed to taking forward eight years of hard work and keep delivering real results for New Zealanders,” Mr Joyce says.
“We will build on our strengths as a more diverse economy with a safe, stable and secure business environment, focused on attracting investment and growing innovation in the economy, and advancing open trade with international trading partners.”
CEVA Logistics, one of the world’s largest supply chain management companies has announced the appointment of Carlos Velez Rodriguez as Managing Director for its Australia & New Zealand cluster. Based in Melbourne, he will report to the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Xavier Urbain.
Velez Rodriguez joins CEVA from FM Logistic where he was Group Managing Director Central Europe for the last decade and led a team of 5,000 individuals. He has a proven track record in the logistics sector and has held a number of commercial roles at companies in Europe, the USA and Latin America. Born in Colombia, he is an Austrian citizen.
His appointment is effective immediately. Commenting on Velez Rodriguez’s arrival, Xavier Urbain says: “I am delighted to have someone of Carlos’s caliber to lead our operations in Australia & New Zealand. His extensive industry knowledge, experience in leading large organizations and his collaborative style make him an excellent successor for this critical role in this important cluster.”
| Automotive World | Dec 13, 2016 |
Mozzarella plant landmark for dairy industry
Craig Foss to quit at next election
Renewable energy strategy open for consultation
While you were sleeping: Record ride continues
Head of innovative global tech incubator in Lower Hutt this week
Whisky Co still hopes for distillery
December 2016 edition of NZManufacturer released
Third party trademark agency receives warning from ComCom
Manufacturing sales continue to rise
Ultra low fares for ultra long route - $1259 to London on Qatar Airways
Rocket Lab Completes Major Technical Milestone Ahead of Test Launches
Trade finance remains poor relation of populist state industry hand-outs
As the 1980s dawned the Silicon Valley of the South Seas was the Hutt Valley. Apple’s Steve Wozniak cruised the valley in awe of the digital presentation skills of the state television operation based on the Avalon studios. The state’s own physics and engineering laboratory was at work on advanced integrated circuitry and superconducting.
A privately held company variously known as Systems and Programmes Ltd, SPL, and Progeni had designed a desk top product that had taken interactive screen graphics further than any other developer had taken the science up to this time.
More significantly still, the company had a branded product ready to sell. Better still, it had a customer ready and waiting, wanting to buy the new product range aimed which was aimed at the education sector.
At this time China had not yet become the market star it was to become several decades later.
China was then a nightmare for anyone exporting anything other than raw commodities. The problem was in getting paid – a problem that continues now still throughout Asia.
The deal was an early forerunner of what became an established yet still unspoken and thus unrecognised problem
Samples and drawings are required (and copied). Everything was, and still is, forthcoming but payment.
This was before the era in which China transitioned to a virtual free market economy.
The specific selling proposition underpinning the Lower Hutt desk tops was the graphical user interface and thus their application in practical teaching.
A Chinese mining company said it wanted thousands of the machines in order to instruct employees in safe mining practices. The photograph of the Poly desk top computer, as it was known, shows its custom moulded rugged sealed casing. (Photograph courtesy Retrowe Museum.)
The demand was now identified. But in the classic tradition of such deals in the region then as now, the method of payment remained floating in the air.
Banks at all stages within China and outside it were involved in order to devise a scheme of credit finance.
More samples were sent to China.
At this time New Zealand’s rigorous import licensing/quota restrictions were still in force.
Steel, the logical counter trade commodity in the deal was out of the question because of the need to protect New Zealand Steel.
At this time the Chinese had not yet developed their consumer range products such as whiteware to the stage of being considered as barter trade products.
SO the deal languished. Until that is someone thought of bicycles. New Zealand didn’t make them. The kit assemblies of the Raleighs and Rudges of the era was confined to the back rooms of the retail bike shops.
SO there was no concerted vested-interest lobby against bicycles becoming the counter trade counterweight to the sending to China of the desk top computers.
A test shipment of bicycles duly arrived in Lower Hutt. And failed to sell.
The early enthusiasm for bicycling had waned, and was not to reappear until much, much later when it again became viewed as a fashionable, rather than an eccentric, pastime.
The episode which amounts to one of lost opportunity, remains of value now because it points up the lack of export trade finance capability in New Zealand, a nation which no longer even has its own merchant bank, or one to rank with the international version.
The conditions of the era described here exist substantially to this day. The existing banking structure is attuned to restricting risk to the taking of real estate collateral.
The official trade promotion and development departmental apparatus refuses to acknowledge even the chronic problem now of receiving payment for manufactured or processed goods sent to Asia.
It has a see-no-evil stance on things like Asian buyer fees for tender and tender deposits along with endless and unacknowledged copying problem.
A favoured official dead-end referral is to the development banks such as the Asian Development Bank.
New Zealand has never really been on the must-help list of these banks, in spite of a generalised reluctance to admit it.
| From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk | Wednesday 14 December 2016 |
Digital engineering and the human-machine interface is likely to benefit from a recent international collaboration on the interaction between soft materials and rigid robots at the University of Auckland.
The new research-training group between New Zealand and Germany will also have implications for the future of safety and medical ergonomics for the meat, agricultural and automotive sectors.
Overall, the aim is to educate a new generation of digital engineering doctoral students at the University of Auckland and the University of Stuttgart in areas including simulation technology, computer modelling, sensor technology, and robotics and control engineering.
The interaction of rigid robots with easy-to-deform materials is challenging even independent of its applications in functions such as the field of developing and designing exoskeletons, fully automatic apple pickers, or meat cutting devices.
The collaboration is led by two professors from the University of Stuttgart - Professor Oliver Röhrle and Professor Alexander Verl and two professors from the University of Auckland, Professor Peter Xu (Faculty of Engineering) and Associate Professor Leo Cheng (Auckland Bioengineering Institute).
“Soft materials or tissues are often subject to damage or injuries when handled by rigid robots and so far there have been few attempts to improve this situation,” Professor Xu said.
“To contribute to a long-term and significant impact that solves these problems, the new International Research Training Group (IRTG) established an interdisciplinary environment for enhancing basic research and training outstanding doctoral students.”
According to Professor Peter Hunter, director of the Auckland Bioengineering Institute, this IRTG will “greatly benefit” from the synergies between both universities, in particular in the areas of simulation technology, cyber-physical engineering, robotics and biomedical technology.
“It will significantly improve our understanding of the interaction between next-generation robotic devices and soft human tissues,” he added.
The group will develop novel simulation technologies and sensors to estimate the deformations of materials that are subject to the interaction with the rigid robot.
In addition, it will also develop new automation and control strategies for robots interacting with easy-to-deform materials.
These new applications will improve the knowledge base for the design and the automation of industrial plants in general, and the knowledge and experiences will form a basis to enhance the exchange of information between the virtual and the physical world.
The new IRTG between Auckland and Stuttgart will train 20 PhD researchers for the first phase of four years (2017-2021), ten at each side, jointly supervised by academics from both universities.
At Auckland, ten professors and academics from the Faculty of Engineering and Auckland Bioengineering Institute will take part in the IRTG.
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
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