NZ ranks 11th in trade index

By ADRIAN CHANG - BusinessDay
Last updated 15:46 08/07/2009

New Zealand is amongst the most trade-friendly nations in the world, according to a report from the World Economic Forum.

The Global Enabling Trade Report 2009 ranks countries on services, policies and institutions that help foster open trade.

New Zealand came in at 11 overall out of 121 countries, behind Singapore, Hong Kong and eight Scandanavian and European countries.

New Zealand was rated particularly highly for its border administration, and was given top place in the report's corruption perception index.

The country ranked at number 5 overall in the border administration sub-category.

Ironically this comes the day after the Agriculture and Forestry Ministry announced plans to lay-off 60 border protection staff due to falling cargo volumes and passenger arrivals.

Nonetheless Business NZ chief executive Phil O'Reilly said New Zealand's high ranking was a testament to our openness to international trade, sound institutions and services, and hard work over decades to get good trade deals with other nations.

"The 2009 report also provides a valuable checklist of some areas where we could improve our performance, including regulation and infrastructure," said O'Reilly.

One particular issue highlighted in the report was market access.  New Zealand ranked 39 in this area - the country's low import barriers were recognised, but was overridden by barriers faced by our exporters, especially for agricultural products which make up 59.5 percent of our exports.

Our closest neighbour and largest trading partner, Australia, came in at 14 overall.  The African country Chad  and Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) came in at the bottom.

(http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/economy/2576133/NZ-ranks-11th-in-trade-index)