Presidents Column

Happy New Year to all ANZCHAM members. 2010 has started auspiciously with the entry into force of the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement on 1 January. AANZFTA is the largest free trade agreement Australia has concluded, covering an area that in 2008 accounted for 20% of Australia’s total trade in goods and services - worth $112 billion. The agreement will deliver commercially meaningful benefits to Australian businesses and further strengthen our commercial ties with the Philippines.

The success of AANZFTA will depend, ultimately, on how businesses take advantage of the more liberal access arrangements the agreement provides. I encourage all ANZCHAM members to look at what AANZFTA means for your business. We held an information seminar on AANZFTA late last year, in conjunction with ANZCHAM and the NZ Embassy.

Austrade is here to assist Australian business, so I encourage you to make contact with the team at the Embassy for advice on taking advantage of AANZFTA, sourcing products from Australia, and two-way investment. Detailed information is available at the DFAT website (http://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/fta/asean/aanzfta/).

Despite the distraction of the national elections in May, we are optimistic about business opportunities in the Philippines. Austrade is off to a flying start, conducting promotions for Australian meat products, vocational education, mobile IT and green building very early in the New Year.

As we do every year, Australia Day provides an opportunity for us to showcase a little of Australia in the Philippines. This year we are highlighting Australian culture and the arts with performances by Didgeridoo virtuoso William Barton and the Orava String Quartet. Well worth a visit in February will be Embassy-sponsored contemporary Australian glass and photography exhibitions, at the Ayala Museum and Gateway Mall respectively.

Congratulations to ANZCHAM on a successful Oztangi Day BBQ at the Sofitel Garden on 31 January. The Australian Embassy looks forward to continuing our close cooperation with ANZCHAM in its valuable business promotion, networking and advocacy roles.

Thanks to all ANZCHAM members who contribute to this, particularly the Executive Committee led so ably by Richard Barclay.

On behalf of all of us at the Embassy, I extend my best wishes for the New Year.

Ambassador Andrew Matheson

I’m pleased that there is such an active Australia New Zealand Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines, and I look forward to a continued partnership between the New Zealand Embassy and ANZCHAM throughout 2010.

Close work between the New Zealand and Australian Embassies and Philippine government departments has seen the ASEAN Australia New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (AANZFTA) enter into force for the Philippines on 1 January 2010. The Philippines is one of the six ASEAN member countries to take part in this FTA, along with New Zealand and Australia, from day one. That’s good news for both businesses and consumers in those countries.

The two embassies have already worked closely with your chamber in updating members on the business opportunities the FTA brings, and we’ll continue to do that during 2010. An article elsewhere in this edition of Oceania has more details.

The Philippines is important to New Zealand. Trade is significant, of course, and the Philippines is New Zealand’s 14th-largest market for goods exports and our fifth-largest market for dairy products. I expect the variety of goods exported, and the overall bilateral trade, to grow as the tariff cuts under AANZFTA are phased in.

AANZFTA’s benefits to services market access and investment protection should also help widen the commercial relationship between the two countries.

But there’s more to the relationship than trade, and the personal and cultural links between the two countries are undergoing massive change. The Philippines is now New Zealand’s third-highest source of skilled migrants. Within Southeast Asia it’s our most important source of students. The number of Philippine visitors, such as tourists, to New Zealand continues to grow.

So New Zealanders are becoming increasingly familiar with Filipinos, who in turn are finding out more about Kiwis. As I said at the ANZCHAM directors’ and sponsors’ dinner at the New Zealand official residence recently, the New Zealand Embassy values its partnership role with ANZCHAM. I look forward to that continuing in the new year.