Hui to lift Maori exports over $400m

By DANIEL RIORDAN

More than 100 Maori entrepreneurs, trusts and business leaders gather in Rotorua tomorrow for a strategic planning hui aimed at boosting Maori exports.

The hui, organised by Trade NZ, will focus on ways Maori can cooperate to succeed on world markets.

Andrew French, leader of Trade NZ's Maori Enterprise Team, says Maori exports are worth about $400 million.

But with Maori owning assets worth about $4.5 billion Mr French reckons export returns should be much higher.

The $4.5 billion is based on a study by economic researcher BERL and comprises $3 billion in agriculture, $658 million in business and commercial assets, $551 million in forestry and $400 million in fishing.

While export earnings from urban-based businesses such as apparel, manufacturing, giftware and consultancy are rapidly increasing, the four primary sectors, seafood, horticulture, agriculture and forestry, still dominate.

"We're looking to diversify our export base. We see great opportunities in education, information technology and consulting,' says Mr French.

Ways to achieve that include greater cooperation, taking greater advantage of Maori networks, targeting markets that have low export barriers or shifting to products that can be exported more easily.

Being Maori is a point of difference which Maori exporters can use to their advantage on world markets.

"You need something to differentiate yourself from other products in the global market and that different cultural dimension certainly helps."

The definition of a Maori business is wide ranging.

It includes Maori-owned businesses, businesses whose culture, management structure or vision is predominantly Maori, businesses that employ mainly Maori and businesses that identify as Maori.

Maori success stories include meat export network Outlands NZ which has been working with two Maori land trusts for the past year to export value-added beef products to high-income, health-conscious consumers in the US, with developing markets in Singapore and Malaysia. Outlands chairman Jim Gray will address the hui.

Other keynote speakers include Maori trade commissioners Bruce Shepherd (Dubai) and Tui Te Hau (Melbourne), Trade NZ chairman Joe Pope, Treaty of Waitangi fisheries commissioner Shane Jones and Reserve Bank chief economist Adrian Orr.

Maori exporters diversifying into the kinds of niches Mr French is keen to identify are Palmerston North-based Biofarm which sells organic yoghurt in the US and Pohutu Prints in Rotorua which exports to Canada. Helped by Trade NZ, the Maori Wine Group launched wine label Tohu last year and is selling to the US and the UK.

Is it in any way patronising to talk of Maori business and Maori exporters?

Mr French does not think so.

"Five years ago Maori were talking about getting into exporting but today it's a reality.

"We're obviously major players in fishing (the Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission owns 50 per cent of the country's biggest fishing company Sealord) but are increasingly big players in cutting edge technology."

They include Dunedin-based television animator Taylormade Media, Wellington's Compudigm International, which last month opened an office in Las Vegas to service the information systems it supplies to the gaming industry, and Hamilton-based 3-D computer company Deep Video Imaging, whose backers include Warehouse founder Stephen Tindall and listed company IT Capital.

All claim to be Maori businesses, using one of more of Mr French's criteria.