Expo gives the good oil on Pacific trade

Leonard Touatini is trying to interest NZ in Tahitian healing oil. Picture / Greg Bowker

A New Zealand company wants to expand its exports of traffic safety equipment to the Pacific, while a Tahitian company wants to find a new market here for a traditional healing oil used to treat injuries.

Their stalls may have been only a few metres apart at the inaugural Pacific Trade Expo in Manukau yesterday but the trade imbalance between New Zealand and the Pacific region remains a sizeable gulf.

Each year New Zealand exports well over $1 billion to the region, making the Pacific (excluding Australia) its sixth largest market but only imports around $80 million back, of which about two-thirds is oil from Papua New Guinea.

In opening the expo, Finance Minister Michael Cullen said many New Zealanders had a "rather fuzzy" picture of the country's trading relationship with the Pacific.

Dr Cullen said the Pacific region needed investors capable of developing its resources, such as forests, minerals and fisheries, in ways that respected local resources and the environment.

"I believe that New Zealand companies are in many instances the ideal business partners to bring that potential to fruition."

He said one of the best ways to build and strengthen a Pacific economic unit was to ensure a strong architecture for regional trade. He wanted to see more of New Zealand's small to medium-sized enterprises get involved in trade with the Pacific.

Australia and the Pacific were markets most easily accessed by New Zealand exporters, making them ideal testing grounds.

New Zealand and 13 other Pacific island countries were represented at the expo, which included business seminars, at the Telstra Clear Pacific Events Centre in Manukau.

Gilbert Ullrich, chairman of the New Zealand Pacific Business Council, said Pacific countries needed to become more sustainable by tapping into their natural resources to shift them from aid-based to trade-based economies.

Mr Ullrich was concerned too many countries were denuding their skills base by exporting their people. He wanted to see more trans-migration between the Pacific countries, rather than one-way movement to Australia and New Zealand.

Mr Ullrich was also concerned at China's increasingly aggressive competition for trade in the Pacific.

Sue Walker, export manager for CSP Pacific, said the roading supplies company had to compete hard with China and Australia. China had taken the major roading project in Fiji and was sourcing most of its own materials.

However, she said CSP Pacific had been exporting products such as road crash barriers and street lighting to the region for 25 years and saw further growth in the market.

"They are starting to take road safety more seriously."

One of the earliest Pacific traders, W. H. Grove & Sons, also noted the increased presence of China, which funded big building projects and then supplied the materials and labour.

Company director Bede Mahoney said China had started construction of the Cook Islands police headquarters.

"They are using Chinese builders who go fishing on the reef after work ... you even see rickshaws."

His company had been trading in the Pacific for 110 years, from when schooners brought down Pacific fruits from the islands to New Zealand. Now the company only exported to the region, specialising in top end food products to cater for the tourist markets.

Mr Mahoney said it also supplied building materials and was ready to react fast to cyclone damage.

"We were on the first Hercules to Niue after Heta."

At the opposite end of the trade equation was Enterprise Kao Temanu, a small Tahitian company that was hoping to crack the New Zealand market.

Owner Leonard Touatini said they were participating in the expo to find a distributor for tamanu oil, a traditional balm harvested from the nuts of the tamanu tree known as the "tree of a thousand virtues".

Mr Touatini said the almonds produced a green oil that was well-known for its antibiotic qualities and healing virtues.

It had multiple uses from treating burns and use in massage for the relief of painful joints to cosmetic applications for dry and damaged skin.

* The Pacific Trade Expo is open to the public today at the Telstra Clear Pacific Events Centre in Manukau.