Fears as trade roles cut

Kiwi companies doing business with Britain fear New Zealand will become the "poor cousin" after the British Government's decision to centralise the management of its trade functions in Australia.

United Kingdom Trade and Investment (UKTI) has axed the heads of its Auckland, Brisbane and Perth offices, plus a senior role in Melbourne, in favour of directing operations for all of Australasia from a central point, likely to be Sydney.

The move is a cost-cutting exercise. "Clearly, in the UK context, the public sector is looking at how we do our business and looking at reducing costs, and that's been ramped up since the change of government," said deputy High Commissioner Mike Cherrett.

However, the role of Auckland director John Waugh was the only job to go and the restructuring was "in no way any scaling down of the way we see New Zealand", he said.

The British New Zealand Business Association is not convinced. President Damon Butler said he understood Auckland was one of UKTI's best-performing offices.

"From a business association point of view, we are a little bit concerned how that will impact on our organisation."

It worked closely with the agency, relying on it for access to people and it feared that New Zealand could now get overlooked. "That's the worry, that we'll be treated like the poor cousin."

As it was easy to do business in New Zealand, the UK might have decided resources were better directed towards developing markets, he said.

Cherrett said that under the Cameron Government UKTI had a new set of priorities.

There was a lot more it could do to promote business links with New Zealand, particularly around the Rugby World Cup. "We're seizing that as a way of growing our business and investment links just as much as New Zealand Trade and Enterprise are."

The High Commission in Wellington and the consulate in Auckland would be working together more closely.

"We can do more with less. Rather than have a pyramid at every post, we're flattening things and managing it across the network rather than managing it as an autonomous entity."

Last year, the UK Government closed its passport-processing operations in Australia and centralised them to Wellington, where around 85,000 passports were now issued each year - it is the biggest processing office outside of the UK. That had created work for New Zealanders, Cherrett said.