Big boost for N.Z. products

Press, 4 February 1986, Page 7

Big boost for N.Z. products

NZPA staff correspondent Washington

New Zealand products will get a boost in the United States this month and in March with promotions in California, Dallas and Chicago.

The main events are trade and tourist related promotions connected with cultural events at Santa Barbara, California, and Chicago. In Santa Barbara a combined tourist and trade promotion will be linked with the showing of New Zealand films at the first Santa Barbara international film festival. In Chicago the link is with the opening of Te Maori exhibition on March 6. A new business association for people associated with New Zealand trade is being formed in San Diego and will have its inaugural meeting on Waitangi Day, the same day the New Zealand Ambassador, Sir Wallace Rowling, officially opens a New Zealand commercial centre in Dallas. Also this month for the first time New Zealand fishing interests have combined to set up a marketing display at a specialised seafood trade fair in Los Angeles to capitalise on a fast expanding market. The Dallas venture, called New Zealand Expo, is the work of Spencer and Jennifer Jackson, of Auckland, who represent about 15 New Zealand companies with a showroom in the Dallas Market Centre.

It was initially opened last May with about nine companies. Sheepskin products, brass beds, colonial chairs, jewellery, holidays, toys, leather products and cosmetics are some of the products sold into the huge Dallas market through the group. “We’ve been trying to put together an economical package whereby

New . Zealand manufacturers can expose their product to the marketplace,” said Mr Jackson.

Some lines had been successful. A sale of $U5375,000 ($712,500) of a kiwifruit confectionery was made recently and at least SUS2 million ($3.8 million) of another kiwifruit product have been sold along with good sales for sheepskin products and honey. About 150 people are expected at the official opening of the Dallas New Zealand Expo on Thursday, and a similar number are expected in San DiegO when the New Zea-land-related business association has its first meeting the same day. The San Diego Business Association is the brainchild of a former Napier and Wellington lawyer, Mr Robert Ayling, who has lived in the California city since 1981. It is aimed at people who export to and import from New Zealand.

In Los Angeles the New Zealand Connection group is well established but Mr Ayling said he felt a separate entity was required for the increasing number of people doing business with New Zealand through San Diego. The idea had caught on well, he said. New Zealand trade officials and Government officials in Wellington were taking a keen interest.

"We could do great things if we had a consulate here like New Zealand has in San Francisco,” he said.

Mr Ayling believes more New Zealand companies should look to shipping through San Diego to get their products into the United States as he says costs are lower than through Long Beach further north. The business association will be addressed by Sir Wallace at its second meeting on March 3.

On February 11 and 12 a seafood trade fair will be held at the Disneyland Hotel at Annaheim where five New Zealand fish export companies will display their wares to the food trade.

They are Sealord, Fletcher Fisheries, Seafresh Fisheries, New Zealand Seafood Marketing (the United States company of Becroft Bros) and the Shellfish Farms company.

Fish exports to the west coast of the United States have increased rapidly, doubling in 1984/85 to SUSI 4 million ($26 million) say New Zealand trade officials.

Lobster exports rose 116 per cent in the same period to SUS 9 million ($lB million). Other shellfish exports, mainly green-lipped mussel exports were up 17.3 per cent to $U51,616,000 ($3 million). “Trade is expanding very well,” said one official.

On February 24, the New Zealand Embassy in Washington will host a one-day trade promotion for the New Zealand textile industry representing New Zealand companies such as Bremworth, Alliance and Canterbury. Santa Barbara, north of Los Angeles, late this month and in early March sees New Zealand food and drink, sportswear, ceramics, glassware and books among other things promoted and sold with tourism in events connected to the Santa Barbara film festival which begins February 28. The runner, Rod Dixon, is expected to take part in a skm family run on March 1 along with Sir Wallace.

The next day Maori dancers and the New Zealand 1985 entertainer of the year, Brendan Dugan, will take part in a New Zealand tourist office and Air New Zealand promotion.