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Japan has been welcomed into the TPP negotiations says NZ Trade Minister Tim Groser. “We believe that Japan’s participation in the negotiations will contribute to the objective of creating a 21st-Century agreement that will spur economic growth and development, promote innovation, benefit our consumers, and support the creation and retention of jobs, higher living standards and the reduction of poverty …

Key’s visit initiative will have a tremendous impact on forestry. Especially if supported by positive follow up action from NZ bureaucrats in tariff reduction.  This will certainly boost lumber exports, a reprieve from the death sentence for the kiwi saw mills and thousands of jobs in our heartlands. The other major thrust required is to remove non tariff trade barriers …

Tim Groser will make a strong – but indirect – plug for the right person to be appointed to the top job in global trade when he heads to Surabaya, Indonesia tomorrow for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Trade Ministers’ meeting. Groser’s message is – “It is crucial to the success of the WTO’s mission that its members choose a …

Dame Jenny Shipley will stand down as a director of one of China’s most powerful banks at the forth-coming AGM – one of three independent non-executive directors who are retiring by rotation from the board at the shareholders’ annual meeting. The others are  Joseph Yam Chi Kwong  and  Wong Kai-Man. Dame Jenny was first appointed as a CCB director in …

Cofco chairman Frank Ning was one of the star performers at the inaugural New Zealand China Partnership Forum in Beijing last Friday. Ning has thought long and hard about Cofco’s relationship with food-producing nations like New Zealand. I’ll be writing more about this in coming days. Meantime this Bloomberg clip gives an indication into Ning’s thinking.

Prime Minister John Key arrived back in New Zealand from Beijing with a strong message ringing in his ears that China Inc wants to step up the pace and take the bilateral economic partnership to the next stage. It was a good week for Key. Not only have senior Chinese accepted the essential value proposition of New Zealand to China (which …

TV3’s Paddy Gower scooped the pix for the Gillard kiss (double-cheeks if you have to know) after John Key swept down the staircase at the Boao Sofitel hotel straight into the Australian Prime Minister’s open-armed greeting. The photo-op had been careful stage-managed by Julia Gillard’s PR who officiously told the NZ journalist delegation accompanying the PM to the prestigious Boao …

Chilean Economy, Development and Tourism Minister Pablo Longueira is visiting New Zealand this week to carry out discussions on education, Māori economic development and tourism. Minister Longueira, who was invited to visit New Zealand by Prime Minister John Key during his recent Latin America trip, arrived today for a four-day visit. He is accompanied by a 21-strong delegation including the …

CYPRUS REJECTS LEVY PROPOSAL: Overnight, the focus remained on the Cypriot deposit levy/bailout issue.  In latest news the vote of ‘Plan B’ has just failed. Overnight the Cyprian parliament debated a ‘Plan B’ as they rejected the current governing party’s request to postpone the vote and ‘Plan A’ was a show stopper. ‘Plan B’  was  only slightly modified from the first cut as …

Chief negotiators report that they had achieved the goal set for the round: to put the negotiations on an accelerated track toward conclusion of a next-generation, comprehensive agreement in the 2013 time frame envisioned by President Obama and the leaders of the ten other TPP countries. Through the TPP, the United States is seeking to help establish a trade and …