Pacific Trade Invest shows Pacific path to market

Pacific Trade & Invest (PT&I) NZ is showing the Pacific the path to market in New Zealand with its largest delegation of small businesses at Pasifika Festival 2017.

A group of 28 companies from eight Pacific Islands Forum countries will be part of the PT&I NZ Pasifika Festival delegation – the biggest group of small businesses and entrepreneurs organised by PT&I to attend the festival to date. The festival is New Zealand’s largest Polynesian festival.

The delegates offer a wide range of distinctive Pacific Islands products from handicrafts and carvings to various processed food products.They are hoping to test demand and use techniques learnt from the PT&I Path 2 Market programme attended last year.

For some participants being at Pasifika is a 6000km plane journey over two days from Palau in the Northern Pacific on indirect flights via the Philippines and Australia. Others will come from Melanesia – Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. Tonga and Samoa are also represented.

This Trade Mission to New Zealand represents the third step in a six-step export capability programme where there are three key components – (1) Participation at the Pasifika Festival, (2) Gap Analysis Workshop and (3) Business to Business meetings.

“Our Pacific Path to Market Programme delivers a structured approach to understanding and entering the New Zealand market. Important to this process has been our partnership with the local economic development agency who are involved in each step of the process. It has been a very successful programme for us and we have already received interest to grow the programme this year,” says PT&I Trade Commissioner, Michael Greenslade.

Participation at the Pasifika Festival provides companies with an opportunity to test their products in market through direct interaction with the New Zealand public. The Gap Analysis Workshop builds on the learnings from the workshops that were delivered in-country last year. Business to Business to meetings brings that process full circle as the businesses are introduced to New Zealand buyers.

PT&I New Zealand ran 10 successful Pacific Path to Market workshops in Fiji, Federated States of Micronesia, New Caledonia, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Republic of Marshall Islands and identified potential small businesses potentially ready to take the next step into international exports.

The potential businesses were then invited to participate in the trade mission to New Zealand, the next step of the programme. Some are here for the first time, to test their products, see who their potential customers might be and get a feel for the potential New Zealand markets and benchmark against other similar products being sold.

A group of small business owners and entrepreneurs who attended last year’s programme said it was a very positive experience.  Some had gone on to expand their businesses at home whilst others have either started exporting or increased export volumes.

The programme was initiated by PT&I New Zealand who are the trade office in Auckland of the Fiji-headquartered Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat.  PT&I NZ is funded by the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and tasked to facilitate trade from the Pacific Islands to New Zealand.

PT&I Trade Development Manager Joe Fuavao who is the project manager for the PPTM trade mission said, “We warmly welcome our EDA partners and the Pacific businesses to New Zealand and look forward to successfully deliverying this programme to meet their needs.”



Photo Facebook Pacific Trade & Invest (PT&I) NZ: Jenny Wal Gonapa from PNG Highland Adventures at the Pasifika Festival 2016    
Source:
Pacificperiscope