UPDATED 5.26PM: New Zealand exporters are making sure they are in the game, with one of the world's mega cargo ships arriving here tomorrow.

The Aotea Maersk is the biggest container ship to ever visit our shores.

She will visit Port of Tauranga, which has dredged its shipping channel to accommodate larger ships.

Export NZ boss Catherine Beard said there were concerns that as everyone else in the world moved to bigger and bigger ships, New Zealand would miss out if we did not have ports that could take these big vessels.

"The reason that would be a problem is because we would have ended up having to possibly transship our exports out of somewhere like Australia."

Beard said Kotahi - a freight-management collaboration between some of our big agri-exporters - was put together so we would have the volume to use, and attract, these big ships.

She said acting collectively gets us noticed.

"We have to do these sorts of things because we are off the beaten track. We are a small player really in global markets so we've actually got to do everything we can to stay relevant in the trade route."