Latest / Best of Business / Felicity Roxburgh: NZ International Business Forum Executive Director on exports, impact of trade wars

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Felicity Roxburgh: NZ International Business Forum Executive Director on exports, impact of trade wars · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk zed be
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  Speaker 2: If you're looking for some of these so called green
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  Speaker 2: shoots in our beleagated economy, then exporters are doing some
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  Speaker 2: heavy lifting for US. Two thirds of them have increased
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  Speaker 2: or maintained their export levels over the past twelve months.
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  Speaker 2: Fifty nine percent expect even more growth. Felicity Roxburgh is
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  Speaker 2: the executive director of the New Zealand International Business Forum
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  Speaker 2: and is with us. Felicity, good morning to you.
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  Speaker 3: Good morning mate.
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  Speaker 2: Are we seeing anything tangible yet on the tariffs?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I mean this is hot warming to see this positivity,
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  Speaker 3: isn't it. I mean there's a lot of depressing economic
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  Speaker 3: news out there at the moment that the export is
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  Speaker 3: they're there, they're going great guns. But to answer your question,
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  Speaker 3: I mean the tariff that's going to take time to
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  Speaker 3: flow through. The latest fifteen percent round of tariff. Some
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  Speaker 3: of the goods that are on the water, they're still
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  Speaker 3: not even going to pay those until the fifth of October.
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  Speaker 3: So a lot of positivity, but yeah, time will tell
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  Speaker 3: hit wins a hit.
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  Speaker 2: That's kind of why I asked the question because this
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  Speaker 2: is in the rearview mirror of these stats, and you're right,
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  Speaker 2: they are good. But when you talk about in this
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  Speaker 2: report looking to diversify, how real and how practical is
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  Speaker 2: that for a lot of exporters.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I think one of the things that we benefit
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  Speaker 3: from is this kind of very extensive spaghetti bowl of
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  Speaker 3: FTA negotiations that our good trade negotiators have been doing
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  Speaker 3: over many years. So there are opportunities there, and diversification
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  Speaker 3: has been around for a while. You know, company has
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  Speaker 3: been talking about options and diversification. But Mike, we can't
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  Speaker 3: invent new markets overnight. These things take time. You need
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  Speaker 3: good suppliers, good contexts, good supermarket chains. You know, it's
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  Speaker 3: not something we can quickly pivot to.
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  Speaker 2: So the two things you've highlighted UK and Japan when
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  Speaker 2: we talk about diversification UK, I'm assuming that's out of
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  Speaker 2: an FDA.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. I should say this is export in
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  Speaker 3: New Zealand's survey. They're on our board, so they're with us,
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  Speaker 3: but it's not our International Business Forum survey. But yes,
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  Speaker 3: UK and Japan they're highlighted the UK FDA and also
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  Speaker 3: the EU is in there as well, and a billion
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  Speaker 3: dollars more trade went into the EU last year, So
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  Speaker 3: that's that's good news as well as.
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  Speaker 2: Japan a slow burner is there are lots of upside there.
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  Speaker 2: They are a very protectionist sort of society.
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  Speaker 3: They are, but now they're in the CPTPP, which is
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  Speaker 3: one thing us trade new is absolutely love and we
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  Speaker 3: were in the you know, we're at the ground pur
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  Speaker 3: of the CPTPP and there's heaps of opportunities for us
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  Speaker 3: through that agreement.
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  Speaker 2: Are we boxing above our weight? So if you look
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  Speaker 2: at the global outlook, it's subdued, to say the least,
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  Speaker 2: which would lead you to believe that people don't want
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  Speaker 2: more stuff. But do they want more stuff if it's good?
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  Speaker 2: So is that our story?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, our high quality premium products, we need people to
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  Speaker 3: want that and they do, and we need us consumers
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  Speaker 3: to be prepared to pay more for them because fundamentally,
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  Speaker 3: these tariffs, they're going to get passed on to the consumer.
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  Speaker 3: So you know, our wonderful wine, our wonderful beef, all
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  Speaker 3: of that, you know, that's that's the story there.
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  Speaker 2: These numbers are interesting. Twenty five percent don't require any
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  Speaker 2: assistance from trading enterprise. Twenty two percent want more help.
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  Speaker 2: I find that interesting. Twenty percent seek more support on
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  Speaker 2: R and D, another twenty percent wanting access to market research.
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  Speaker 2: What's the vibe in terms of the relationship with government
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  Speaker 2: and what can and can't be done well?
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  Speaker 3: I think, you know, in this time of uncertainty, there
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  Speaker 3: is more appetite to work more closely with government and
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  Speaker 3: that sort of makes sense. It doesn't there because there's
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  Speaker 3: a lot of unpredictability out there and that's something that
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  Speaker 3: businesses don't like. You know, unpredictability means are we going
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  Speaker 3: to make capital investments? Are we going to take on
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  Speaker 3: new staff? So I have seen these definitely an appetite
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  Speaker 3: for good, high quality, actionable intelligence because there's so much
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  Speaker 3: information and noise out there at the moment, so exporters
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  Speaker 3: are thinking, gosh, what's going to happen overnight in the US.
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  Speaker 3: So that's what I'm seeing is just appetit for engagement,
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  Speaker 3: good stuff.
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  Speaker 2: Felicity appreciate it very much. Felicity Roxburgh ed at the
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  Speaker 2: New Zealand International Business Forum.
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