Canterbury Manufacturers’ Association
1 December 2006.
It should be Export Year every year
The Canterbury Manufacturers’ Association says that the $33 million addition to Government’s Market Development
Assistance Scheme and the Export Year 07 promotion will have little impact on New Zealand’s exports or the ballooning
trade deficit.
“$33 million is not an insignificant amount of money and it will be helpful to those firms who are able to get access to
it. But compared to what stands behind an annual trade deficit of over $6 billion, it is a drop in the ocean”, says
Chief Executive John Walley.
“Inflationary Government policy places upward pressure on interest rates as the Reserve Bank pushes back on the economy,
the exchange rate lifts and exports suffer. This fund will not offset the damage of even a few tenths of a cent rise in
the cross rates on the US and Australian dollar. Politicians are just playing round the edges rather than getting to
grips with what really matters in the policy framework”, says Mr. Walley.
“High profile rah-rah presents gives a veneer of action but fixing things for real needs leadership, not politically
driven, vote focused activity”.
Mr. Walley says that a policy framework that provides exporters with tax incentives to develop new innovative and
upgraded products, plant and people would make it ‘Export Year’ every year. Those need to be underpinned by coordinated
and coherent policies that deliver low inflation, certainty and support where it makes a real difference in the
productive economy.
“If there was any real focus on the tradable economy we would not be seeing the policy driven economic imbalances, yo-yo
currency and inflation that is now apparent to everyone who cares to look. The Export Year 07 scheme is a small time
solution to the biggest problem in the New Zealand economy, and it will do next to nothing to reduce the $6 billion
trade deficit and build export growth long term“.
ENDS