Wig fumigation, honey tests & cheese rules among export woes

Wig fumigation, honey tests and cheese rules among exporters' woes

By Pattrick Smellie

July 25 (BusinessDesk) - A survey of New Zealand exporters finds them optimistic about growth in the next year, despite battling needless wig fumigation, new manuka honey testing that throws up false positives, and other countries' finicky rules about cheese imports.

While the 169 respondents in the Export Institute's latest survey of exporter attitudes is hardly large enough to be scientific, some 51.8 percent of those who responded expect to grow export sales in the next year, with weak offshore demand being the most common constraint to growth at 22.3 percent.

However, perhaps most interesting in the survey are the collated comments from exporters about the wide range of frustrations they experience in shipping goods offshore.

One complained of the "unnecessary $50 cost" of fumigating wigs exported to Italy, and of facing 100 percent tariffs when sending wigs to Brazil, which doesn't even have a wig industry.

Another complained that honey testing at the border was causing manuka honey to show false positive readings, leading to their detention at the United States border, and possibly preventing their entry to France.

Sringent educational requirements for skilled immigrants was cited by one exporter as a barrier to developing their business, while another was challenged by the requirement to complete documentation for exports to Finland in Finnish.

Australian quarantine inspection and fees "delay product getting to market and often feel
like a non tariff barrier!" said one exporter, who suggested also the Chinese free trade agreement felt like it was "in place for the ZESPRI's and Fonterra's, not small business."

Of the exporters surveyed, only 11 percent expected worse trading conditions in the year ahead.

The second most-nominated barrier to export growth was exchange rate volatility, cited by 17.5 percent of those who answered the survey, which was dominated by Auckland and Bay of Plenty firms and manufacturers.

Price competitiveness and lack of support for exporters were third and fourth equal, nominated by 13.3 percent of respondents each.

The vast majority had no serious issues with regulation at the New Zealand end of the export chain, but around half had trouble in destination countries, which was restricting their growth, the survey found.

(BusinessDesk)

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