Wool trade: let's stick together

By Phillippa Stevenson

Wool exporters want united action with producers to overcome irrelevant debate and go to battle for the consumer dollar.

Wool Exporters Council president Peter Crone said it was no longer appropriate for exporters and the grower-owned Wool Board to pull in different directions.

"The world textile marketplace is a very hostile jungle and it's indulgent to pretend otherwise," he said. "We need to work together developing markets, then let individual exporters compete vigorously for sales and supply."

Mr Crone said that was the international marketing model used by the wine industry and it appeard to be working well. He had listened for two months as the Wool Board held its round of grower meetings, hoping to "hear a single indication that someone might have a germ of an idea about how New Zealand wool might be marketed better."

"But ... all I heard were irrelevancies. From Merino New Zealand's packhouse proposal to the sad delusions of the International Wool Corporation, the debate has consistently missed the mark."

Mr Crone said it was bizarre that growers could spend countless hours debating the future of the industry without involving the people who buy wool.

"Each year, New Zealand export companies pay growers hundreds of millions of dollars for their wool. They pay for scouring, packing, shipping and insurance. Increasingly, they finance their mill customers, as well as meeting the normal costs of sales and marketing. Yet exporters are totally cut out of the consultation loop. Wool marketing activities are debated, formulated and implemented as if we didn't exist."

The reality of international fibre markets was that fibres needed ongoing technical development and market promotion if they were to survive, he said.

"As stakeholders in New Zealand Wool Incorporated, growers, exporters and the wider trade should jointly fund and plan these activities. A continuation of the present model, which is based on the presumption that growers and exporters are enemies, puts the industry at an even greater risk.

"We are allies in the battle for the consumer dollar being waged in world markets. It's time we worked together."

His comments followed an explanation of the gloomy state of wool internationally by NZ Wool Group general manager Roger Buchanan to Taranaki farmers last week.

He said wool's share of global fibre markets had gone from 16 per cent to just 3 per cent in a few years as synthetic manufacturers made enormous productivity gains. Their average plant had gone from a yearly production of 6.5 million kg to 33 million kg.

"World commodity prices are going down an average of 2 per cent per annum and the market share of wool has gone down significantly. Synthetic fibres are being used in a whole range of new products. Our competitors are increasing their product range and constantly improving."

Items such as polar fleeces and stain-resistant carpets made from synthetics accounted for increases in synthetic fibre sales at the cost of traditional wool products.