China to receive big N.Z. trade mission

Press, 6 November 1984, Page 18

China to receive big N.Z. trade mission

PA Wellington The Minister of Overseas Trade and Marketing, Mr Moore, will take more than 40 businessmen, trade unionists and Government officials to China/ next month. " ■ / The team, which he says will be the largest trade mission to leave New'Zealand, will visit Shanghai, Peking and Nanjing for nine days from December 12. Details of,,the mission were confirmed by Mr Moore’s staff. Mr Moore said that he believed the fact that business people were prepared to brave —2O deg. and miss much of the festive . season showed their enthusiasm for China, and his method of combining trade and official visits.

The Minister is taking up an invitation to tour China which was issued by China’s Minister of . Light Industry, Mr Yang 80, who visited New Zealand in September. Mr Moore said that the trip to China fitted well with the three-year programme of official visits in which he would try to include business people and others. The delegates were being broken into four categories, those in the agricultural and food processing industries, technology transfer, banking and servicing, and the manufacturing industry. All business people would pay for the privilege of taking the trip, while the unionists, probably from the food industry, would be paid for by the Government. The unions lacked the resources and the Government saw benefit in their going, said Mr Moore. The Federation of Labour’s president, Mr Jim Knox, went to Australia on Mr Moore’s first trip, and the secretary of the Meat Workers’ Union, Mr A. J. Kennedy, went to Japan — both trips have been seen by the Government as success-

ful in getting union understanding of export demands. Apart from promoting existing products in the • China-New Zealand trade of , wool, aluminium, paper and pulp products, casein and ; animal products, Mr Moore is eager to see exporters ■ take advantage of new product areas. He has in mind the use of reprocessed mutton as a source of protein. New Zealand was doing ' well in China in the old products, Mr Moore said, ' but it was new areas where growth could occur. Steel had potential in China, while the Nanjing dairy project might involve the sale of dairy products as well as technical co-opera-tion. The trip to China comes after the Wool Board sue- ’ cesses and technical cooperation deals to establish wool processing facilities in China. Last year China was New Zealand’s seventh largest market, taking $l6O million in goods — more than 2 per cent of total exports. The trade balance runs three to one in New Zealand’s favour.