Crowd down, spending subdued
Back to its “normal” mid-June timing, it looked like all the stars were in alignment for the Fieldays at Mystery Creek.
David Mundell has just been on a two week trip to NZ with the main objective of promoting the NZ/UK FTA, which came into force at the end of last month. As part of his trip, Mundell had talks with business people in the South Island, attended the prestigious Ahuwhenua Awards dinner and was at Fieldays meeting with NZ politicians, government officials and business leaders.
He told Rural News that this, his third visit, was particularly timely and provided an excellent opportunity to promote the benefits of the FTA. As part of this promotion, the British High Commission staged a special seminar at Fieldays, which was well attended and was the subject of much positive feedback.
"This is widely acknowledged as a gold standard agreement," he says. "So, my role is to help raise awareness of the FTA both in Britain and in NZ."
Mundell says his role is to get out and about and identify and talk to businesses who could benefit from the FTA. He admits there is work to do in the UK and says the challenge is to break through some of the less than positive 'noise' around the agreement.
He is working closely with the UK Department of Trade in this regard. Mundell says, as well as promoting the FTA to UK companies, he is also keen to sell the good news about the FTA to NZ companies as well.
The UK/NZ FTA is in some ways back to square one for the two countries. Britain's entry into the then EEC in 1973 saw NZ forced to quickly diversify and find new markets for its primary products. Now the relationship is refreshed with the advent of the FTA. Mundell says it is a first class trade agreement in every respect with the removal of trade barriers and tariffs, but it goes further than that.
"It is also an agreement based on shared values, a commitment to the rule of law and a way of doing business," he says. "Importantly, it is underpinned by that relationship of trust over many years which bodes well for the future."
One challenge that Mundell faces in the UK is the historic opposition by UK farmers to NZ lamb entering their market, allegedy at their expense. He says the reality is that when NZ had a sheepmeat quota with the EU prior to Brexit, NZ never fully filled that quota.
"To suggest that the UK would be swamped with NZ lamb is not credible and it's not going to happen," he explains.
"I think the real opportunity for UK farmers will come from the fact that with counter seasonality they can work with NZ farmers to provide product year-round in the supermarkets. That's the real opportunity."
Mundell adds that the other challenge is just encouraging more young people in the UK to eat more lamb.
Background
Sixty-year-old David Mundell, a lawyer by background, has been a Scottish politician since 1999.
He served as Secretary of State for Scotland from 2015 until 2019 in the David Cameron and Theresa May governments. However, he ended up being sacked by Boris Johnson in 2019.
His main role is a Member of Parliament and the role of Trade Envoy is an additional job, which depending on circumstances, can take varying amounts of time. During Covid, this has meant working some odd hours on Zoom calls, which he admits had its moments.
However, this trip has enabled Mundell to get around NZ and meet people in person and get a good feel for the relationship.
