Overseas promotion ‘should be vigorous’

Press, 13 May 1981, Page 7

Overseas promotion ‘should be vigorous’

The New Zealand Government should engage in a “vigorous, imaginative and appropriate’’ campaign of promoting overseas trade, says Mr D. F. Caygill, the Labour member of Parliament for St Albans.

Mr Caygill recently returned from a four-week trip to the United States as a guest of the United States International Communication Agency’s visitor programme. He was in Washington, D.C.. at the time of the Senate debate on whether to restrict casein imports from New Zealand. He said that the debate, and the debate over New Zealand lamb imports into America since, had confirmed his conclusion that an outbreak of protectionism followed when a government tried to reduce its level of participation in the economy. New Zealand could promote its products by dealing with the legislators and pol-icy-makers in the United States.

“It is a question of paying attention to the potential areas of difficulties and trying to cut them off before thev arise,” he said. He said that he had seen more of the problems. than the promises in the American market on his trip. It was important for New Zealand to look at other markets outside America. "It would be as much a mistake to put all our eggs in the United States market now as it was to think that way a decade ago about Europe,” he said. The African continent was one example of where New Zealand could promote goods. Nigeria, Kenya and Egypt were three countries which could, afford to buy the type of goods New Zealand wanted to sell. A public servant had recently told him that one problem on the African continent was the lack of a cool store. “I would rather see the Fletcher Consortium build a cool store than an aluminium smelter,” he said, adding that the difficulties with the cool store in Bahrain did not mean New Zealand should “give up.”

He disagreed with the view that politics was an argument between socialism and private enterprise. The role of Government in a mixed economy was not restricted to enterprises such as the Railways.

The New Zealand Government already had a big involvement in industry and agriculture through extensive systems of subsidies and incentives. The question was how vigorous, imaginative and appropriate that involvement was. He did not think the present Government had performed well enough in the area of promoting overseas trade.

“The present Government

has opted for a singularly narrow economic strategy, namely thinking big,” he said. “But that is not thinking large — it is thinking narrow. We are talking about a small number of big projects that are enormously expensive and do not employ many people.” Even taking the earnings of projects such as the alu-

minium smelter into account, it was not a way of addressing the problems of New Zealand "right now.” The possibility of a down-turn in world prices for aluminium made the project speculative,, he said. There were about 150,000 businesses in New Zealand, most of them small. That in itself was a reason not to “think big,” he said.

He believed the National Government was now following a similar approach to that of Labour in 1975 by borrowing to keep the level of domestic activity at a reasonable level.

“The big difference is that the borrowing we are now embarking on is on behalf of a small number of very large projects which certainty require considerable foreign exchange but which produce very few jobs,” he said.

Labour’s main objective was to provide jobs. If each of New Zealand’s 150,000 businesses could be persuaded to employ just one extra person, enough jobs would be

provided for the “tens of thousands" of people registered unemployed and those who were not registered but were looking for jobs.

"I don't think we could see 150,000 jobs created overnight,” Mr Caygill said, “But a Labour Government would create a climate of confidence which would enable or persuade businesses to expand their production.” While in America Mr Caygill visited a pilot synthetic fuel plant in New’ Jersey. The main thing it showed him was that “it works," he said.

The energy development in New Zealand made sense for the most part, except that the New Zealand public was being "conned" into forgetting that New’ Zealand would still be 50 per cent dependent on overseas oil imports at the end of the 1980 s. America was 50 per cent self-suffi-cient in fuel now, and they "did not regard that as particularty satisfactory."

One of the main interests Mr Caygill had in his visit to America was in the range of services congressmen provided for their constituents.

Congressmen could have a staff of 18 while senators were allowed a staff of 35, paid for by the state, he said. Most congressmen had district offices with a full-time staff of three or four, which meant that constituents could get help or advice even when the congressman was in Washington. While many members of Parliament had offices and. with assistance from the electorate, could have parttime staff, Mr Caygill said he would like Government support so that all members could provide better services for their constituents.