Tim Groser in the Bay to talk trade and growth

Local exporters were yesterday given hope of selling into new markets as New Zealand chips away at more free trade agreements.

Trade Minister Tim Groser, who is standing in the New Lynn electorate, visited export companies in Tauranga yesterday and talked about huge opportunities in emerging economies - "that's where the growth is."

He said the developed world was drowning in a sea of debt and it was yet to be seen whether the adjustment would be brutal or measured.

Mr Groser said if local exporters could keep costs under control, they had the opportunity of feeding, clothing and educating people in the emerging countries with stronger growth rates - such as Indonesia, India and Russia.

He said New Zealand was the only country in the world negotiating a free trade agreement with Russia, and Russia would soon be admitted as a member of the World Trade Organisation.

"This will accelerate our negotiations, and I don't think New Zealanders think of the commercial opportunity in Russia. The place is coming out of chaos - it had 80 years of communism and then unregulated capitalism."

Mr Groser visited Stoney Creek Manufacturing in Greerton and saw the potential for the company to sell its high-tech hunting jackets in Russia. "There are some extraordinarily rich people who go hunting over there," he said.

Katikati-based Puma Dart Products was also looking at the Russian market.

Following the trade agreements with China and Hong Kong, New Zealand has taken the first steps towards a closer economic co-operation with Taiwan.

"We will be the first country to join the three dots of China together, in terms of free trade," Mr Groser said.

He was also excited about the export potential in Indonesia, the fourth largest country in the world with 240 million people.

Indonesia has completed domestic procedures to enter the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area (AANZFTA).

Mr Groser said that from January, businesses on both sides of the Tasman would be able to capitalise on the agreement's considerable opportunities for mutually advantageous trade with Indonesia, an important trading partner.

"Indonesia is a major emerging economy, which is the largest in South East Asia and accounting for more than one third of ASEAN's gross domestic product. Indonesia is expected to be one of the world's top economies by 2030," he said.

Local exporters can also capitalise on the latest move by the nine Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) countries - Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and the United States.

At a recent meeting in Hawaii, the partnership announced an ambitious, 21st Century agreement that will enhance trade and investment among the TPP partner countries, promote innovation, economic growth and development, and support the creation and retention of jobs.

He said he met many New Zealanders doing incredible things - innovation in the primary sector is obvious but there are lots of smart IT and other companies.

New Zealand Trade and Enterprise was working with 450 high growth companies, and some of them will be based in the Bay.

"We want them to double their growth," Mr Groser said.

"We ain't going to get richer by selling to ourselves and we have to increase the export orientation in the country. Exports have gone to the front of our thinking," he said.

During his day in Tauranga, Mr Groser visited the Newnham Park Horticultural Innovation Centre at Te Puna and was impressed. He inspected a robotic kiwifruit picker.