HortNews
	Contestability Favoured For Apple Exports

WELLINGTON 19/3/2001 - Many people who made public submissions on the future direction of apple exports want contestable exporting, Agriculture Minister Jim Sutton says.

Of the 121 submissions received, 85 supported contestable exporting, either through full deregulation of the sector or by switching apples into the Horticulture Export Authority.

Those advocating deregulation included growers, grower organisations, exporters, former New Zealand Apple and Pear Marketing Board and Enza board members, Maori stakeholders, and post-harvest operators, Mr Sutton said today in Hawke's Bay.

Mr Sutton released a report, prepared by Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) analysts, but said a lot more work was needed before any decision to change export rules would be made by Government.

Mr Sutton said the apple industry was going through a period of some turmoil at the moment, and it was important to set a direction that can provide confidence to the industry for the future.

"We grow excellent apples in this country, and we need to ensure that we can set in place the most efficient and profitable exporting system in place so that growers benefit from their labour."

Last year, the Government invited apple growers to make submissions on a discussion paper which proposed four options: the status quo, returning to a single desk seller, total deregulation, or the Horticulture Export Authority model.

"This is not a decision I will make on my own," he said today in a statement. "Cabinet as a whole would make any decision".

But the Government would only make decisions when it was confident the industry will be behind those decisions, that they were in the national interest, and that any minority interests were addressed.

Submissions on the Government review of the apple industry closed at the end of January.

Since Enza became a company last April, apple growers struggling because of continuing poor export returns from a fruit-glutted world, have been disillusioned by a corporate raid by investment companies GPG and FR Partners, who between them snatched nearly 40 percent of Enza in August, took over the board and laid down uncomfortable new rules.

The new investors have themselves been discomforted by parallel exports under independent permits - which could total five million cartons this season.

Under present new industry rules, independent permit fruit must not compete in Enza's markets, but the permits are handed out by the Independent Export Permits Committee. Enza is due to challenge some of its decisions at a High Court hearing in Wellington on March 26.

Enza has voiced serious concerns about the amount of fruit which could be independently exported, and has sought to tie down the committee on the definition of complementary exports.

The Apple and Pear Export Permits committee has so far issued or approved in principle permits for the independent export of over four million cartons of pipfruit.

Enza has estimated it will export only 14.9 million cartons, or less.

The company's new managing director Michael Dosser, seconded from Turners and Growers in December after the sudden resignation of Enza chief executive David Geor, has described the loss of grower confidence in Enza as a big concern.