New Zealand exporters are facing more than $9 billion a year in costs from non-tariff barriers, according to Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade figures cited by ExportNZ.<\/p>\n
It said focusing on identifying and removing those unnecessary obstacles could help boost economic growth.<\/p>\n
The call is one of 14 action points in ExportNZ’s Grow Locally, Compete Globally report, which sets out recommendations aimed at helping more New Zealand businesses successfully navigate international markets.<\/p>\n
ExportNZ said MFAT data showed 83 percent of the country’s exports were affected by non-tariff barriers, with products facing an average of nine separate obstacles across the markets they entered.<\/p>\n
Executive director Joshua Tan said the barriers had become one of the biggest constraints on export growth, even as free trade agreements reduced traditional tariffs.<\/p>\n
Tan said local businesses already had to contend with distance, freight costs and limited scale.<\/p>\n
“New Zealand is a small country exporting from a long way away. Our businesses can’t afford to be hamstrung by over-the-top regulatory requirements that often shift without warning.”<\/p>\n
Non-tariff barriers can include onerous certification requirements, technical standards, labelling rules, customs processes and differing regulations between markets.<\/p>\n
ExportNZ said even one technical or certification issue could make a potentially valuable market commercially unviable, particularly for smaller exporters.<\/p>\n
Tan said negotiating more free trade agreements was only part of the answer.<\/p>\n
“New Zealand must have the capability to defend the access it provides and help businesses convert that access into actual sales.”<\/p>\n
The blueprint also calls for a national export readiness programme, faster uptake of paperless trade systems, more research and development support, and better coordination between government agencies and exporters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Zealand exporters are facing more than $9 billion a year in costs from non-tariff barriers, according to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-567269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}