KEY POINTS:
The Green Party has hit back at criticism that its Buy Kiwi Made campaign sends the "wrong messages" to business.
The New Zealand Institute today said more firms should consider moving their production overseas.
The sixth report in the think tank's series, Creating a Global New Zealand Economy, said firms should be encouraged to locate production closer to the end-consumer or to international transportation.
This meant they could then "compete on the basis of price, quality, branding and so on, rather than on the basis of supply chains".
"The Buy Kiwi Made campaign sends the wrong messages in this regard."
Some New Zealand firms were successfully using such business models, but there was the potential for many more firms to do so.
But Green Party MP and government spokeswoman for the Buy Kiwi Made campaign, Sue Bradford, today said the report was too narrowly focused.
Ms Bradford said on Radio New Zealand the Government already ran several programmes which aimed to connect local businesses with the global market.
It was important to have a programme like Buy Kiwi Made to retain local jobs and ensure goods did not have to travel huge distances, expending large amounts of energy, to get to local consumers.
New Zealand Institute chief executive David Skilling said moving production offshore was actually good for the environment as the exported goods did not have to travel far to their market.
But Ms Bradford said the report's comments were "disrespecting" to local manufacturers who had decided to keep their production here to protect local jobs.
Most of New Zealand's exports were from the primary sector, which could not be easily relocated to other countries and the institute would be better to focus attention on how value could be added to those products before they were exported, she said.
The report also said international shipping links needed to be improved by encouraging more efficient investments at ports and aligning road and rail infrastructure to them.
Protecting the country's national airline was also paramount to retaining international trade links and tourism.
Lastly the report advocated better and cheaper communications technology.
Broadband was "the transport infrastructure of the 21st century," and vital both for connecting firms with the world and for encouraging virtual exports, particularly in the creative and software industries.
Other reports in the institute's series have outlined the importance of international economic engagement and identified options for raising New Zealand's international economic activity.
- NZPA
