Beef + Lamb NZ promoting trade opportunities with Japan

8 July 2011

Beef + Lamb New Zealand Chairman, Mike Petersen is part of the New Zealand delegation attending the Japan New Zealand Partnership Forum in Tokyo next week, working to strengthen the business relationship between the two countries.

With both countries in recovery mode since devastating earthquakes, common interests are strengthened and there is a realisation that business must play a leading role in moving Japan and New Zealand forward, Petersen said.

On the agenda will be discussion of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement and while Japan is not yet a party to those negotiations it has signalled its interest.

“If Japan was to join the TPP this would certainly expand the trade opportunities for our two countries within the Asia Pacific region.

“There are real opportunities in this region for New Zealand sheep and beef farmers. In the last year New Zealand exported 31,584 tonnes of beef to Japan and 7754 tonnes of sheepmeat.

While in Japan, Petersen will engage with distributors, retailers and the food service sector. He will also build on an initiative of Beef + Lamb New Zealand’s Japan Market Manager, John Hundleby, cooking New Zealand beef on the barbecue for Japanese people displaced by the March earthquake and tsunami.

Earlier in the year Hundleby hosted two massive barbecues serving 400kgs of New Zealand steak to residents at two evacuation centres in Japan’s worst-affected Tohoku region. Many of these people had not eaten meat for weeks.

Next week’s New Zealand barbecue will be at Kamaishi in Iwate Prefecture.

ENDS

© Scoop Media