Exporter a crusader for nation

By Selwyn Parker

They're ready and waiting - technicians from Ullrich Aluminium's pool of troubleshooters.

When an export customer in the Indian Ocean or the Pacific runs into problems, they fly out and help the client sort it all out. It might be a boat-builder in Samoa or a roofing contractor in the Seychelles.

"If there's something we can learn, it helps us too," explains managing director Gilbert Ullrich.

For Mr Ullrich, leader of three New Zealand trade missions, this is the only way to compete against the world aluminium giants.

Exporting is almost a crusade for him. "I feel it is my personal duty to help New Zealand continue to survive by exporting," he says.

The company started exporting nearly 35 years when, with a heady sense of adventure, staff sent a packet of hinges to Fiji by parcel post. They did not even know how to fill out an export form.

From that modest beginning, Ullrich Aluminium's exports have rippled outwards in expanding circles until they now take in most of the Pacific. "We started with one country, then went to five, then 10, then 15," he recalls.

Worldwide, Ullrich Aluminium now claims 25 client nations for its roofing alone. Almost no market is too small for the manufacturer which claims Pitcairn Island (population about 60) as its smallest customer.

Factories in Australia - where Ullrich Aluminium receives the export incentives, tax breaks on R and D and free expertise from Government agencies that it does not get here - supply emerging French-speaking markets in the Indian Ocean such as the Seychelles, Maldives and Mauritius.

There are numerous configurations for exporting. In South Africa, where Ullrich Aluminium is negotiating to set up a partnership, the company will probably do so through a licensing deal rather than through capital investment.

By contrast, across the Tasman the factories are wholly owned and operate as Australian entities, which entitles them to all the tax and other perquisites unavailable here.

Ullrich Aluminium's offshore sales have relied on its long-standing money-back guarantees as well as on relationship exporting. If something goes wrong, the company will either replace it or meet its liabilities in some way. The other day it paid $500 to a contractor in American Samoa because a shipment did not land in time.

The company is looking hard at opening an office in Fiji to service the Pacific. An office in Perth already looks after clients in the region around the Indian Ocean.

For Mr Ullrich, the rewards of exports are both spiritual and tangible. Apart from deriving much satisfaction from selling all around the world, income from exports built the firm's Hamilton plant.

Famously opinionated about what he sees as Government failure to assist exporters, Mr Ullrich wants it to wake up.

"Our Wellington trade policymakers are just out of touch with the rest of the world," he thunders.

"It's really amazing that after so many years they have finally noticed that nearly every other country is passing us."

His advice to Wellington includes the establishment of some form of export bank along the lines of those in most other developed economies, and a special and lower tax rate for exports. But he's not waiting up.