Prime Minister To Address Export Awards Dinner

Prime Minister Helen Clark will be the guest speaker at the Trade New Zealand Export Awards dinner in Auckland next month, a celebration of New Zealand’s export heroes.

The dinner – at which New Zealand’s Supreme Exporter of the Year will be announced – is the climax of the first-ever Trade New Zealand National Export Conference (May 14 and 15).

“Export success is critical to New Zealand’s future prosperity,” says Helen Clark. “Because New Zealand is a small market, our businesses must reach out to the world in order to achieve real economic growth.

“One of the keys to export growth is speeding up the process of economic transformation – which is already well underway – to take the economy up the value chain,” she says.

“New Zealand’s future prosperity depends on a business community that is innovative and accepts no limit on our potential. It is educated, skilled, creative and enterprising people who are going to drive our future as a nation.”

Trade New Zealand Chief Executive Fran Wilde says the two-day conference is “definitely not an example of talking heads and international exporters pontificating on New Zealand”. Rather, she says, it has been designed to provide insight into fundamental success factors through focused, professional advice backed up by case studies and workshops.

Featured exporters include seafood company Ngai Tahu Seafood, organic egg exporter Free Range Eggs NZ, technology innovator Right Hemisphere and apparel leader Icebreaker.

“Top exporters from across all sectors will be telling their tales – laying bare their mistakes, successes and the lessons learned along the way,” says Ms Wilde. “It will be practical and relevant, the sort of information you can’t learn out of books or at university. It comes from the school of hard knocks and experience and will be invaluable for companies of all size who want to improve their export business.”

The two-day programme will also cover specific market opportunities and hot export issues such as branding, e-business, export finance options, intellectual property and market intelligence. Apart from experienced exporters, speakers include key business commentators, Senior Trade Commissioners and Government Ministers.

Ms Wilde says that this is expected to be the largest ever gathering of New Zealand exporters and, apart from the high volume of information available, it will be an excellent opportunity for networking.

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