Furniture firm gets foot in export door

Press, 29 September 1979, Page 18

Furniture firm gets foot in export door

D. A. Lewis, and Comanpy, Ltd Christchurch furniture manufacturer, might win a five-year contract to supply! timber tables to a mine- 1 workers’ housing project on Bougainville Island, off Papua New Guinea, after an initial 544.000 order, which was obtained with the help of the New Zealand ExportImport Corporation. Announcing the initial contract the Corporation's Christchurch manager. Mr M. ; J. Painter, said it was for 680 tables of various sizes to be I shipped out of Lyttelton in | November. The Bougainville Copper representatives were here in' May on a buying mission for; the refurnishing of 21001 mineworkers’ housing units on the copper-rich island. ‘‘Traditionally they make purchases like these in Australia. But some good work put in by the New Zealand trade commissioner in Port Moresby. Mr P. J. Klap. and regular visits there by our own people ensured we were taken into consideration when the re-furnishing project came up. “Between the Department of Trade and Industry, and ourselves we made sure that.

our visitors saw a variety of manufacturing operations nationwide m the fields in tvhich they were interested,’’ said Mr Painter On the basis of price, plus the impression made on two representatives of the buyer, Bourgainville Copper. Ltd. during a May visit to the company’s factory they had since signified they were prepared to make a five-year commitment to take several thousand more tables if the [first order meets expectation. he said.

A director of D. A. Lewis, ;Mr M. L. Lewis, said the Bougainville order represents his company’s first foray into export business. “We. would not have won this project if it hadn’t been for the Export-Import Corporation. which undertook all the initial overseas contact work, and introduced us to the Bougainville people when the> were here. “We hope that we will be able to work in with the Corporation to develop more export markets.’’ said Mr Lewis.