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Trade Minister: NZ's economy needs to diversify and move away from China

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Thu, 30 Apr 2020, 9:25AM
Photo / NZ Herald
Photo / NZ Herald

Trade Minister: NZ's economy needs to diversify and move away from China

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Thu, 30 Apr 2020, 9:25AM

The Trade Minister agrees we need to diversify more, and avoid over-reliance on countries like China.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters says we should make or grow goods here if we can do so, within 15 per cent of what we pay for imports.

He's warning of the pitfalls of globalism and thinks the country needs to be more autonomous.

David Parker told Mike Hosking he warned before Covid-19 that the rock lobster industry was putting too many eggs in one basket.

He says the biggest exporter of rock lobster in New Zealand was selling all of its produce to China and suffered the consequences of that.

“New Zealand's trying not to put all its eggs in one basket so it's not too reliant on countries like China.”

Parker says the Government always wants to try to diversity more, which is why it's putting so much effort into the European Free Trade Agreement.

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