Forestry Leaders Combine To Develop China Market

12 August 2005

NZ Forestry Leaders Combine To Develop China Market

Rotorua industrialist, Phil Verry, executive chairman of Red Stag Timber Ltd, has been elected to the position of inaugural chairman of the board of New Zealand Wood Innovations (Asia) Inc, (WIA).

WIA has been formed by the six leading New Zealand wood processing companies to spearhead their combined strategy to develop the China market for New Zealand value added wood products.

Other members of the five person WIA board are:

Don Johnson - Pan Pac Forest Products Ltd Mike Wyse - Carter Holt Harvey Woodproducts Matt Bond - Weyerhaeuser New Zealand Aaron Sonnenberg - Gunns Veneers

The sixth member of WIA is TDC Sawmills.

The members of WIA are actively supporting the New Zealand Trade and Enterprise project to establish the New Zealand Wood Innovation Centre, in the CBD of Shanghai, China. The centre is scheduled to open in November 2005.

WIA chairman, Phil Verry, said the formation of WIA and the public/private partnership with NZTE had created the critical mass needed to establish the Shanghai Centre and to develop trade opportunities for all WIA members from the presence and work of the Centre.

“The slowdown now underway in Australasian housing markets means alternative markets such as China are increasingly important. The China market is huge and New Zealand needs to claim a permanent place in it. It makes sense for New Zealand companies to combine their resources to develop this opportunity” he says.

WIA will create and pursue strategies with its member companies to collectively develop business opportunities in China.

ENDS

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