Overseas contracts worth $25M

Press, 18 June 1980, Page 12

Overseas contracts worth $25M

Overseas contracts won by New Zealand’s service exporters in the past six years exceeded service export development grants more than 20 times by value. The annual report of the Services Export Development Grants Advisory Committee says exporters received $1.2 million in grants while the net value of directly related contracts gained exceeded $25 million. The report, was tabled in Parliament by the Acting Minister of Overseas Trade (Mr Adams-Schneider).

“Many grantees fail to inform the committee when tender-assisted contracts are won although all are asked to do so,” the report says. Last year New Zealand services exporters tendered, with grant assistance, for projects located in a total of 28 countries.

Among the contracts sought were feasibility studies for highways improvements, farms, canneries, irrigation systems, and milk processing stations; consultancies for forest development, harbours developement hydro-electric power schemes valuation systems, and corporate management; design for hotels, parliament buildings, urban water reticulation, and agricultural research laboratories; and the* construction of a wide range of buildings and industrial systems. The report notes that some exporters had difficulty in finding sufficient numbers of New Zealand-based staff prepared to work overseas for extended periods. An integrated system of export benefits has raised the

level of assistance for services exporters to that available to exporters of manufactured goods. t Since the introduction of the new scheme on April 1, the Services Export Development Grants Advisory Committee has ceased to function. The committee’s sixth arid final annual report was also tabled in Parliament by Mr Adams-Schneider. '

“The new integrated system of incentives should provide the impetus needed to encourage a more sophisticated professional approach to the export of services,” the report says. “Emphasis is placed on more intensive research into the potential of particular markets overseas, a greater use of domestic resources, and an increase in the net return of overseas funds to New Zealand.