Good progress for mission to Canada

Press, 25 June 1981, Page 8

Good progress for mission to Canada

NZPA Toronto If the amount of high-level interest Canada and New Zealand are taking in each other is any guide, two-way trade should boom in the next few years. The countries are renegotiating a preferential trade agreement. They exchanged Ministerial trade visits last year, and the Canadians have sent two trade missions to New Zealand in the last 12 . months. A New Zealand trade’ and investment mission is now in ■Toronto, having crossed the country from Vancouver, by way of Edmonton. It has learned that the

> Premier of Ontario (Mr I William Davis) and his Min--7 ister of Industry and Touri ism (Mr Larry Grossman), ' planned to take a trade mis- > sion to New Zealand in September. "The fact that the leader of this province, in central Canada, has chosen to lead a mission to you in the South Pacific is an indication of our interest in your country,” Mr E. E. Stewart. Deputy Minister in the Premier’s office, has told the 17-mem-ber mission at a lunch he gave. The news was a welcome indication to the New Zealanders that their visit to Toronto could well be as productive as their previous stops in western Canada. They had found at a morning briefing with local government officials, importers, and businessmen, a ready willingness to deal with New Zealand. But the accent was not so much on straight import and export deals as on joint ventures, licensing arrangements, and mutually advantageous investments in each other’s economy. This reflected Toronto’s role as Canada’s financial centre with 50 per cent of the country’s .entire market for manufactured goods contained within an 80km radius. “The opportunities are not for selling manufactured pro-

ducts in both directions,” Mr Roy Phillips, president of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, told the mission, “but there are tremendous opportunities for joint ventures, and for moving together into third markets.” He cited Canadian producers’ interest in combining with New Zealanders to manufacture goods for export to the Pacific and Asia, while offering access to the big Canadian-United States market in the other direction. While New Zealand is moving towards closer economic relations with Australia, the United States, Canada, and Mexico could well be a giant free trade area by 1990, predicted Mr Keith Dixon, president of the Canadian Importers’ Association. The mission was told the Ontario Government had noted 2000 manufacturers in the province actively seeking joint ventures with overseas concerns and arrangements to make goods under licence. Members of the mission, sponsored by the Chambers of Commerce and the Manufacturers’ Federation, later dispersed to follow up individual contacts. The mission’s leader (Mr S. R. Hull, president of the Chambers of Commerce), is already talking of more missions to Canada to build on the progress already made.