“Globalization has changed, but in its earlier form, it was principally about opening up the possibilities of economic specialization, economies of scale, and economies of scope.”By Anand Swaminathan for The Politic

Dr. Alan Bollard serves as the Executive Director of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), which promotes regional trade, economic growth, and sustainability. As Executive Director, Dr. Bollard presides over economic programs that are mandated by APEC’s leaders and ministers. Before his work with APEC, Dr. Bollard served as Secretary to the New Zealand Treasury from 1998 to 2002 and then Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand from 2002 to 2012. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Auckland.

The Politic: Can you describe the function of APEC and how it has developed over the years?

Alan Bollard: APEC is an organization that is promoting regional economic integration around the Asia Pacific region. It has 21 member economies, over almost the entire Pacific coastline. This includes big economies like the U.S., Japan, Russia, China, and a lot of smaller ones. Altogether, APEC’s member economies make up half the world’s GDP, and it is the largest organization of its sort in the world.

APEC came about around the end of the Cold War. It was the vision of a number of ministers around the Pacific Rim who realized that, if we could open up the barriers to trade and investment between economies, there was potential for very strong international economic growth.

Can you describe what you think are the benefits of international free trade and, more generally, the benefits of globalization?

Globalization has changed, but in its earlier form, it was principally about opening up the possibilities of economic specialization, economies of scale, and economies of scope. It used the theories of comparative advantage that had been well-established in economics for the last two hundred years, saying it is most efficient if production takes place in countries that have a comparative advantage. Typically, that used to mean that from WWII onwards, a lot of sophisticated production would happen in sophisticated economies like the United States. Whereas, some of the East Asian economies would provide a place for cheaper, lower-skilled assembly.

Over time, this has changed considerably and quite quickly around the Asia-Pacific. Trade has become very integrated, there has been a big growth in value chains. Highly integrated trade and supply chains have brought a lot of benefits to consumers. When we look at who is actually producing, we do see a switch where more developed Western economies have moved quickly out of manufacturing into services. The developing countries have taken over manufacturing.

This has had a distinct effect on the Asia-Pacific region. In APEC countries, at least half a billion people have come out of poverty and into middle-income in the last quarter of a century. Once they are in middle-income, these countries can generate their own growth and grow in more sophisticated ways. For example, these countries no longer have to simply rely on North American consumption or Chinese consumption.

We are very clear that a growth of trade has led to an improvement in living standards, broadly. When you look at how those benefits have been distributed within countries, it does become more complicated. Some groups have gained, and some groups have lost. That’s really where domestic social policies should come into play because they should be identifying the losing groups and helping them re-skill.

Responses to free trade differ throughout the world. Free trade has recently come under fierce scrutiny and criticism from people of all political orientations in the Western world. People have argued that trade has helped to demolish manufacturing in the West and enrich so-called elites at the expense of everyday workers. Do you think this criticism is justified and that there are real drawbacks to trade?

Sometimes people make this criticism about trade, and other times they make this criticism about globalization. Often times, there is an amalgam of things that they are reacting to, that are different from trade. These include migration, the growth of environmental problems, growth in foreign investment, an increase in automation, and a growth in trade. Some of these things are interrelated, but quite often we’re finding that complaints about globalization are not about free trade but about automation.

As to the popular concerns about this, some of it is simply harking back to the past that never existed. There seems to be a view in some European countries and, which certainly came up in the U.S. election, that these countries had a huge, solid manufacturing background and that they have lost that. We have to remember that, in the United States, less than ten percent of jobs are in manufacturing.

Even after World War II, less than third of jobs were in manufacturing. Where do people work? In services. But you would never believe that from the media teaching. Generally speaking, these manufacturing sectors are not nearly as important as most people seem to think. The Financial Times has a term for this, called “factory fetish.” Politicians love factories, but actually, most of them long ago departed the developed world. Jobs in the services sector have taken their place.

Why do you think there is so much of a fixation on manufacturing? Why do politicians consistently have this “factory fetish?”

Some of it is history. The United States’ major contribution to early economics was mass production—Ford factories and onwards. Right through to WWII these were very important.

But really after WWII, Japan took leadership of mass production and it moved around the world.

Factories are also physical things that you can locate and look at. They are very concentrated in terms of employment. That means if you have a factory closure, that event is highly visible. From a communications point of view, it is much easier to communicate about factories. Generally, the story about factories has been about closures rather than openings. Politically, factories are much more attractive from a labor and union point of view. Beyond that, I think some of it is illusionary.

Moving away from the Western world, how would you describe the current state of trade in the Asia-Pacific region? How are attitudes towards trade and globalization within the region?

There was a very positive view of trade and investment because the benefits were very visible right up until the global financial crisis. As a very rough formula for the previous twenty years, we broadly had eight percent average annual trade growth, leading to roughly four percent average annual economic growth, leading to roughly two percent annual GDP per capita growth. This meant people were almost twice as rich as their parents’ generation, which is very strong delivery for the region.

Now, in that period since the global financial crisis, trade slowed down very considerably. This didn’t happen all at once, because China was going through a commodities boom. But then we saw a slowing in trade, a slowing in growth, and a slowing in productivity growth.

Would you say that the positive attitudes towards trade are reflective of the general population in Asia-Pacific? Or do we hear these positive reviews mostly from higher-up and elite members of these nations?

It depends very much where you’re talking about. I’m in Singapore—Singapore is a trading hub and everyone knows that trade is very important. In a large economy like the United States, many people can feel insulated from these regional trade trends. In the Asia-Pacific region, generally there is a feeling that we can see the benefits of what trade has brought. But we do understand that things are changing, and that we have to communicate better to the wider population.

Also, there is a reasonable argument that, in the past, we’ve been convinced that trade and globalization are benefiting countries but we haven’t worried too much about the distribution of benefits within a country. But, there is the argument that with higher levels of globalization, we do need social policies that will stand alongside that. That includes labor market policies, health policies, social protection policies, and above all, skill and reskilling opportunities. What we think most directly impacts jobs is much more automation.

How important has automation been in displacing manufacturing jobs? How will automation continue to shape the future of work?

We can’t be absolutely definitive about these questions because we haven’t been that good about forecasting technological change and its impacts on the economy. Most economic studies find that when you look directly for determinants of job loss, you find that two-thirds might be due to automation. So clearly, automation is having a big impact. It has had a large impact on manufacturing jobs. But the way that automation is going now, it’s actually impacting services much more and that’s where we should be looking to in the future. In the past, automation used to be applied to things that involved heavy lifting and mechanical repetition. But now, it’s being applied to things that involve intelligence and learning and different systems.

What is the future of trade and globalization, given the advent of the Trump administration and protectionist sentiment throughout the Western world?

Quite apart from the growth of protectionist thinking, it did look like we might have seen the growth in regional supply chains in the Asia-Pacific slowing down. Now, I’m not saying that the regional supply chains were slowing down, but that the growth of regional supply chains was slowing down. It looked like they had exploited a lot of the advantages of the economies of specialization. In addition, there has been one other very big economic development in the ten years since the global financial crisis, and that’s the energy revolution.

The other big development will be the development of services trade. Services trade is not that developed in the Asia-Pacific region, but it is starting to be. That happens not only from moving goods across the region in ships, but also from moving data across the region on the Internet. It depends much more on things like telecommunications, roaming data charges, digital movements, cybersecurity, and those sorts of things. Already, data movements have increased fifty times over the past decade, according to McKinsey.

It was reported that there was an APEC trade ministers’ meeting in late May, the first since the election of Trump. If you are able, can you describe the discussions during this meeting? How do other members of APEC feel about the Trump presidency?

Yes, we were doing a couple of things there. We were all pretty interested to hear from the new United States trade minister Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. He had only just been appointed a few days previous to that meeting. We wanted to hear a lot more detail about the new U.S. administration, what it proposes on the trade and globalization side. But we need to hear a lot more detail about what that means, what their concerns are. We did hear some of that from the U.S. Trade Representative. He talked about trade deficits, possible bilateral developments, and a number of multilateral areas.

We’re looking for what we think is best practice around the region. APEC is quite a good organization, both for the U.S. and other member economies, because it is voluntary. It is not like a WTO, or a TPP, or a RCEP, which are legally binding. We are not. We are just a test kitchen. We try things out, we incubate new ideas. So, we’re a place where it’s quite easy to try things out, and if you don’t like them, then you don’t have to be part of them.

Certainly, the U.S. wants to see services trade continue and grow. They’re very focused on digital economy and that kind of commerce. But also, to be realistic, they made it clear that they will be focusing on NAFTA renegotiation. And we’ll watch how that goes.

I know the annual APEC Leader’s Summit will be held in November, and Vice President Pence has indicated that Trump will be attending. What are your expectations for that meeting, and what do you expect Trump to say?

It will be quite a big and important event. We expect to get all the leaders of twenty-one economies and that includes the very big economies. Many of them will have met in other fora by then, and particularly at the G20 Leaders Meeting in Hamburg, Germany. What they do in APEC meetings is that they review all the work I nominated and give directions for the year ahead. What we do is follow the directions of 21 economy leaders. I imagine they’ll be looking at how we communicate the benefits and costs of globalization in all of this. It’s helpful that it’s a few months away, because I think we’ll have more clarity in quite a few of the details.

What advice would you give to college students who want to learn more about international trade and the global economy?

Well, students are very lucky today. They’ve got massive opportunities compared to what used to be the case. They’re operating in an international world. Just within APEC, we have something like one million student movements, cross-border movements going on. I think there are great opportunities available, and my advice is to take advantage of them. There are great opportunities for being and remaining mobile in the world. There are many chances to help preserve many of the hard-won benefits of internationalization because, until the 1980s, it simply wasn’t like that. You simply couldn’t study and work across borders in the way that you can today.

This interview has been edited for concision and clarity.

Foreign Minister Gerry Brownlee today named diplomat Pam Dunn as New Zealand’s Ambassador to the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

"The ASEAN region is a key political and security partner for New Zealand," Mr Brownlee says.

"Ms Dunn will be based in Jakarta alongside our Ambassador to Indonesia, and will work to deepen the trading and political relationship.

"She will also be able to offer New Zealand’s support and expertise in areas such as agricultural development, education, disaster relief, collective security and combating transnational crime.

"Our exports to the 10 ASEAN countries totalled more than NZ$6 billion in the previous financial year, predominantly from goods in the agriculture and forestry sectors but also from services.

"This trade is underpinned by the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (AANZFTA)."

"We hope to grow this significant trade and economic relationship, particularly in education and tourism," Mr Brownlee says.

Ms Dunn was most recently Private Secretary, Foreign Affairs in the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and has previously worked in Beijing and Shanghai.

| A Beehive release  ||  September 4,  2017   |||

Support for TPP11 and the wider trade agenda by the incoming government is crucial for New Zealand now and in the future, says the EMA.

The need to speed up the growth of exporting was one of the key recommendations in the EMA 2017 ElectionManifesto.

“As a nation we rely heaving on trade for jobs and growth. With a population the size of ours, we need a vibrant exporting sector for New Zealand’s prosperity, says Kim Campbell, CEO, EMA.

“Which is why it’s vital whoever is in government in the next term ensures our trade agenda progresses and remains on track.

“We, along with our sister organisation Export New Zealand, support the current push to have 90 per cent of exports covered by free trade agreements, along push with all efforts to bring TPP11 over the line.

“It’s important our exporters have clarity on market access, tariffs and intellectual property with our trading partners.

“For instance, we need to have a trade agreement with Japan – which TPP11 delivers. If we don’t we will be left behind,” says Mr Campbell.

The EMA also encourages the rapid resolution of a free trade deal with the European Union, the pursuit of a similar agreement with the United Kingdom as it exits the EU and welcomes and steps to speed up the finalising of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership among the 16 Asia-Pacific economies involved.

| An EMA Release  ||  September 4,  2017   |||

JR’s Orchards, writes Nicola Watson for www.freshplaza.com  is the only large scale, export orchard left in the Wellington area and is situated in the heart of the beautiful Wairarapa, in Greytown.

"Our region's climate of hot days and cold nights gives our fruit outstanding pressures and brix, making our apples highly desirable to all markets," said Jamiee Burns from the company. "In the past 5 years we have planted in excess of 35,000 trees including the new “Sunglow” Red Delicious which is attracting a lot of interest due to its sweet taste and storage compatibilities."

JR's are planting another 5,000 trees this winter, mainly Royal Gala and High Colour Braeburn. "We are looking to grow our markets in Europe and Asia as we feel our variety mix of Royal Gala, Braeburn, Fuji, Sunglow, Pacific Rose and European Pears will be perfect for these markets. We also export to the Middle East market and currently supply fruit into Lidl and Aldi in Europe."

Although netting is not common among New Zealand apples growers, JR's have 90% of their orchards protected. "We have the largest single netting structure for apples and pears in New Zealand and we will continue to develop until we are 100% covered," explains Jamiee.

"The netting has many benefits in enhancing our fruit quality and fruit finish as it has created its own micro climate under the nets. Our crop is protected from birds, insects, wind and hail."

The first netting was erected in 2007 and according to Jamiee, it has been a fantastic investment. "We have seen a 30% increase in production due to the netting. This is achieved by having a cleaner, pest free product and healthier trees."

JR's are a stand-alone business with no other grower supply base. Everything is marketed under the ECCO brand is 100% own fruit. "We have our own packhouse and coolstores with the capacity to Smartfresh 2,000 bins per day. We load all containers onsite and are part of New Zealand's Secure Exporters Program. This allows our export product to enter overseas markets freely without the need for additional offshore customs inspections."

The company has also invested in a new Compac grader that allows them to size, colour band, defect sort and optimise pack weight to ensure accuracy of the product.

"Our philosophy and vision is to grow excellent quality fruit in a sustainable way, while showing respect for our environment. We have twice entered the New Zealand Ballance Environmental Awards and in 2009 won the Gallagher Innovation Award. In 2015 we entered again and won the 2015 Hill Laboratories Harvest Award, 2015 Waterforce Integrated Management Award and 2015 Massey University Innovation Award, said Jamiee proudly.

The company is accredited to BRC, Global Gap + GRASP, Sedex Registered and follow the New Zealand Pipfuit Apple Futures Program to ensure we can deliver an excellent product and meet all our Importers stringent MRL standards required by our markets.

| A FreshPlaza release  ||  August 31,  2017   |||

"Double the amount of pallets fit onto a container ship" writes Nele Moorthamers Marketing Manager Europe ZESPRI International ( Europe) NV for FreshPlaza. A few months ago Seatrade introduced a new line from New Zealand. "Our kiwis now go to Belgium with the Seatrade Blue," says Nele Moorthamers of Zespri Europe. "This container ship goes to Zeebrugge via Peru and the US, arriving at the BNFW terminal, where the kiwis are unloaded. It will be a set line that will arrive at Zeebrugge every 10 days. The first ship from the new line arrived on August 28. Around 40% of the shipment is SunGold and the rest is Green and Organic kiwi fruit."

ContainersIt's the first time that Zespri has transported its kiwis in 40 foot containers. " 

In the past the kiwis arrived in Zeebrugge in reefer ships, where the entire deck was filled with pallets of kiwi fruit. The line Color Carrier, uses cooled container ships. Every container has around 20 pallets of kiwis and are individually cooled. It mainly has an impact on loading and unloading the ships," she explains.

Double the volume"The container ship has a much larger capacity. In the past we received around 5,000 pallets through a reefer ship and there are 10,060 pallets on the ship that arrived on Monday. That's more than double. The transit time is now a few days longer than with the reefer ships, as this line has extra stops."

Nele says that the season has been satisfactory so far. "We still have around six weeks of sales for New Zealand SunGold, before we seamlessly move to European SunGold. The season for Green is more difficult, as the demand is large and the supply on the market is quite limited."

 | A FreshPlaza release  ||  August 30,  2017   |||

KUCHING: New Zealand is keen to further enhance its ties with Sarawak, especially in the areas of education and tourism.

Its High Commissioner in Malaysia Dr John Subritzky said given there are many Malaysians coming to New Zealand to study, education is something that his country and Sarawak can work on a lot more.

He said tourism between Malaysia and New Zealand had also grown a lot, where many New Zealand tourists are coming to Malaysia and many Malaysian tourists, including Sarawakians, are going to New Zealand.

Subritzky said the purpose of his visit to Sarawak is to meet a wide range of government, business and political leaders, exploring how New Zealand and Sarawak are able to further enhance their ties, especially in areas such as trade, cultural and indigenous links aside from education and tourism.

“Sarawak and New Zealand share particularly warm links through the Colombo Plan and the deployment of New Zealand defence force personnel in support of Sarawak’s defence during the Confrontation.

“Indeed, my visit will coincide with a visit to Kuching of New Zealand veterans from the Emergency and Confrontation conflicts, probably the last visit they will do as a group to Malaysia,” he said after paying a courtesy call on Minister in the Chief Minister’s Office (Integrity and Ombudsman) Datuk Talib Zulpilip at the latter’s office here yesterday.

Subritzky said he was glad to have the opportunity to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the relationship between New Zealand and Sarawak, and Malaysia as a whole.

He noted that New Zealand and Malaysia shared an enduring friendship based on strong political, economic, education and tourism links.

Subritzky is here for an official visit until tomorrow.

While here, he is scheduled to pay courtesy calls on State Secretary Tan Sri Datuk Amar Mohamad Morshidi Abdul Ghani, Chief Minister Datuk Amar Abang Johari Tun Openg, Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas and Deputy Chief Minister Tan Sri Datuk Amar Dr James Masing today (Aug 29).

| A Borneo Post release  ||  August 29,  2017   |||

The export value of New Zealand wine has reached a record high according to the 2017 Annual Report of New Zealand Winegrowers. Now valued at $1.66 billion, up 6% in June year end 2017, wine now stands as New Zealand’s fifth largest goods export.

Over the past two decades the wine industry has achieved average annual export growth of 17% a year states the Report. “With diversified markets and a strong upward trajectory, the industry is in good shape to achieve $2 billion of exports by 2020” said Steve Green, Chair of New Zealand Winegrowers.

According to the Report exports to the USA have lead the strong growth, passing $500 million for the first time (up 12%). New Zealand wine became the third most valuable wine import into the USA, behind only France and Italy.

Mr Green highlighted that in order to achieve continuing value growth, it is critical for the industry to maintain focus on protecting and enhancing its reputation as a distinctive, quality product. “Our premium reputation remains the greatest collective asset for New Zealand wine, and underlies the high average price our wine commands in global trade”.

Improved protection of New Zealand’s regional identities through the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Act, and initiatives such as the launch of the Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand Continuous Improvement extension programme will help enhance the world-class reputation of New Zealand wine as a premium and sustainable product, said Mr Green.

The 2017 Annual Report can  be accessed here:  https://www.nzwine.com/en/news-media/statistics-reports/new-zealand-winegrowers-annual-report/

| An NZWinegrowers release  ||  August 28,  2017   |||

Complex issue of food imports pushes Brussels to bend its rules on not yet talking trade with Britain writes Simon Marks for Politico

Brexit negotiators are close to an agreement on a key trade issue that diplomats anticipate will be formally wrapped up at the latest round of Brexit talks next week.

With the two sides deadlocked on major stumbling blocks such as how to calculate the U.K.’s financial obligations to the bloc — the so-called Brexit bill — the rapid progress towards an early agreement is the first concrete result from the talks, which have been running since June.

The nearly-done deal on what happens to the EU’s massive food import quotas with other countries after Brexit, is all the more remarkable because it does not conform to the EU’s strict sequencing of the negotiations.

The EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier has been adamant that he will not discuss the U.K.’s future relationship with the EU until the talks make “sufficient progress” on three separation issues — the Brexit bill, the rights of EU citizens living in the U.K. post-Brexit and the Northern Irish border. The decision on whether to move on to the next stage will be taken by EU leaders at a European Council summit in October.

As POLITICO reported in July, although trade issues are meant to fall into phase two of the negotiations, the problem of reduced-tariff import quotas raises such a strategic headache for Brussels that EU negotiators have been willing to bend the rules and aim for an early agreement. Diplomats say that the matter has been agreed at a technical level and should be formally wrapped up during next week’s Brexit negotiations.

Lamb chops offer a perfect illustration of the EU’s problem after Brexit.

Tariff rate quotas (TRQs) are mechanisms under which the EU imports agreed tonnages of meat, sugar and grains from around the world with lower-than-usual duties. Brussels, which negotiates a common trade policy on behalf of all 28 states, has 124 TRQs with major agricultural exporters across the globe.

Lamb chops offer a perfect illustration of the EU’s problem after Brexit. Currently, the EU has an agreement to buy 230,000 tonnes of New Zealand’s lamb and goat meat each year, under a quota with reduced tariffs, but Britain traditionally buys 40 percent of this.

So what does the EU do after Brexit? If Brussels spreads the U.K.’s outsize quota among the remaining 27 countries, it will infuriate Europe’s own sheep farmers whose produce would have to compete on the market with the extra supply.

The alternative is to try to divide the 230,000 tonnes between the U.K. and the EU, but this also has legal risks. Big agricultural exporters from Latin America to Australasia could always argue that they lose some of their market access under the new division and could look to sue at the World Trade Organization.

The agreement set to be formally agreed this week is that Britain will carve out and inherit a substantial part, if not all, of its quotas under the EU arrangements, several diplomats said.

“The U.K. is leaving so they can take a bit with them,” said one senior EU official briefed on quota talks. The official added that calculations on the size of the U.K.’s quota will be based on recent trade patterns.

A big push has been made in recent week to seek “convergence on a joint approach” to TRQs with the U.K. so that trade partners in Geneva can be consulted, the official said. After next week’s Brexit talks, the EU is expected to produce an official position paper soon to be sent to the WTO in Geneva as early as next month.No worse off

The EU hopes that it can avoid a big legal showdown in Geneva by citing WTO rules that countries cannot sue as long as they can be shown to be “no worse off” under the new distribution of quotas between the U.K. and EU.

One diplomat also said that big food exporters would be looking to expand their exports to the U.K. when the country negotiates its so-called “schedules” at the WTO.

Schedules are essentially national passports for entering the global trading system and the U.K. will need to negotiate them in the aftermath of Brexit. These schedules will map out Britain’s obligations in terms of tariffs, subsidies and quotas, and negotiations in Geneva will give big exporters an opportunity to wrest bigger import concessions out of Britain.

Despite the imminent agreement on TRQs, there remain severe doubts on the EU that sufficient progress can be made before October.

Britain has been working on the quota question with the EU over recent months, and a spokesperson for Britain’s Department for International Trade said London was fully engaged in resolving the TRQ problem as part of WTO talks.

“In leaving the EU, we will need to update the terms of our WTO membership where, at present, our commitments are applied through the EU as a whole,” the spokesperson said. “The UK wants to ensure a smooth transition which minimizes the disruption to our trading relationships with other WTO Members and tariff rate quotas are one of the issues that we are discussing in a cooperative and transparent way with WTO members.”

Despite the imminent agreement on TRQs, there remain severe doubts on the EU that sufficient progress can be made before October. When asked by journalists at a briefing ahead of next week’s talks whether there was enough time to reach a deal on separation issues a senior EU official said: “We have not yet encountered a situation when lack of time will prevent us from advancing [discussions]. So far, it has been a lack of substance.”

| A Politico release || August 25, 2017 |||

Writes Allan Golombek  a Senior Director at the White House Writers Group for Real Clear Markets. 

The scene in the Hamburg supermarket was stark. Row after row of empty shelves, dotted by a few products made domestically. Edeka supermarkets, the largest supermarket chain in Germany, emptied one store of every last imported good on a weekend. They were making a point. Rather than a protest against openness and diversity, it was an object lesson in the benefits we all derive from those two values. It was a defense of tolerance, but also a reminder that openness to goods and services, people and ideas is not just something we engage in to help others, but to help ourselves, directly and every day.

It is not surprising that this case for openness was made in Hamburg, a city that used to serve as a major port of departure for German immigrants to the United States, and the place widely believed to be responsible for the development of the hamburger, one of many foreign dishes that achieved enormous international popularity. Stripping the shelves of foreign-made products didn’t just demonstrate the advantage of drawing people from around the world through liberal immigration policies, as valuable as that is. It also illustrated the indispensable advantage of being free to import, utilizing resources and skills that can be found around the globe. While pro-trade politicians often try to sell free trade as a way of encouraging exports to create jobs, far more important is the fact that it makes it possible to import, enhancing choice – which is the economic purpose of working in the first place..

The ghost town image of the Edeka supermarket helped make it clear just how much we benefit from imports, of food and other goods, and how important they are to us. In the United States, the amount of imported food continues to increase as Americans consume more products that are either not locally available or not grown fast enough to meet demand. Americans import a wide variety of foods, literally from fish to nuts. Some are not grown in the United States, such as bananas and coffee. Many are made a lot more cheaply in other countries. Many are seasonal, and many new entirely to Americans (as pizza, bagels and felafel once were). Rather than a source of economic decline, two of the driving forces behind the growth of food imports are the desire to cut back on the cost of one’s food budget, and rising incomes spurring a wider desire for choice. Next time you sit down to a meal or grab a snack, ask yourself if it would be available to you if it wasn’t for global trade. No lamb from New Zealand, salmon from Norway, or pasta from Italy.

And next time you hear a politician criticize NAFTA, bear this in mind: The two largest sources of agricultural imports to the United States are its trading partners, Mexico and Canada. That includes most sugar and tropical products, such as coffee, cocoa, and rubber, and animals and animal products, including beef and veal. If your doctor has told you to eat your veggies, bear in mind that Mexico dominates vegetables imported into the United States, supplying peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, corn, pinto beans, broccoli, and cabbage to name a few. Canada supplies carrots, cauliflower, asparagus, mushrooms and potatoes. NAFTA is good for you, physically as well as economically. And if you’re worried about the trade deficit with China, bear in mind that it includes billions of dollars worth of seafood each year, including farm-grown tilapia, shrimp, salmon and catfish.

The value of eating globally, not locally, undermines the core arguments of a growing anti-trade movement: Locavorism, which is based on the flawed premise that a diet of locally grown food offers environmental, economic and social benefits. In fact, the opportunity to import food extends our food supply chain, enhances competition and choice, delivers lower prices, and provides greater variety – the spice of life, literally as well as figuratively.

Over the years, we have been shaping a global diet. The brief removal of imported food from a supermarket’s shelf in Hamburg demonstrates its economic and cultural value to us.

Allan Golombek is a Senior Director at the White House Writers Group.

| A RealClearMarkets release  ||  August 25,  2017   |||

Whittaker's, a premium brand of chocolate in the Land of the Long White Cloud has established a foothold in the Fijian market thanks to an exclusive distribution deal with the Motibhai Group.

Whittaker's head of international markets Matt Whittaker who visited the country this week on a market-familiarisation trip, said he was very impressed with the response from Fijian customers.

"We're delighted to now have this opportunity to build our relationship with chocolate lovers in Fiji via the strong distribution network of Motibhai Group and Prouds retail outlets," he said.

Mr Whittaker said while more established brands in the Fijian market would prove to be a challenge, Whittaker's unique manufacturing process and taste would ensure local chocolate lovers would take to the brand.

"As a family and as a company, we are steadfastly committed to producing only chocolate of the highest quality.

"Whittaker's ensures quality by controlling the whole manufacturing process — from bean to bar — from our one factory in Wellington, New Zealand."

Mr Whittaker said the brand was available in 20 markets around the world with the biggest being Australia followed by Malaysia, China and Canada.

"Of strategic importance is the North American and Asian markets and for the Pacific, one of them is Fiji.

"I think Fiji is going to be exponential — we have already seen four times the sales in the first year with Motibhai and its really exciting days ahead for us.

"In the New Zealand market, we are number two approaching number one and we are market leader in the categories we compete in."

Motibhai Group director Tajesh Patel said the Whittaker's brand was already making inroads in the Fijian market.

"Whittaker's were doing some supplying to some companies in Fiji directly before but about two months ago they nominated the Motibhai Group as their distributor in Fiji," he said.

"And that's how we came into partnership with Whittaker's.

"So Motibhai is the main distributor of Whittaker's in Fiji and we will be distributing through our Prouds stores, supermarkets and in time to come petrol stations as well."

| A Fiji Times release  ||  August 24,  2017   |||