John Walley features on a Radio New Zealand special feature, exploring different views on the claims of manufacturing crisis, with a special focus on the recent closure of Hillside in Dunedin.

The program can be found here.

tags: radionz, manufacturing, hillside

In a recent select committee meeting, Bill English made the comment when discussing calls from manufacturers and exporters to bring down the exchange rate; “What they’re telling you is they want to cut the real wages of their workers, because that is the other side of the equation.”

This comment ignores many of the highly negative effects that the currently high...

tags: bill english, currency, manufacturing, rba, exchange rate, real wages

The first day of the Parliamentary Inquiry into Manufacturing revealed a united view as to what is the biggest threat to New Zealand’s exporting manufacturers, the exchange rate. In a small country scale is the challenge; to compete in a global context the investment that flows from scale is mandatory. The more focused the niche, the greater the pressure to operate in export markets. Export...

tags: exchange rate, currency, nz herald, manufacturing, exports, investment

John Walley talks to Marcus Lush on Radio Live about the announcement of up to 200 job losses in Oamaru, as well as the current economic climate.

Note, John's interview comes after Alex Familton, mayor of Oamaru speaks.

Find the link to the interview

tags: job losses, manufacturing, marcus lush, oamaru, exchange rate, interview

When the Manufacturing Inquiry was announced we sent out an email to all our members, letting them know and encouraging everyone to make a submission. We had the following response from one of our members:

“This is just a political stunt. Don’t send me this rubbish in future – I’ve got better things to do than pander to the political left.”

While every...

tags: manufacturing, inquiry, exports, reserve bank

Sir Ken Stevens, founder of Glidepath and Chairman of Export NZ, was interviewed on Radio NZ earlier this month, giving an outline of the recent success of his company and views and comments on the New Zealand economy. Our concern was how little attention he gave to currency and trade rules, we even got comments from some members stating how damaging such omissions can be, helping to...

tags: exchange rate, brian willoughby, exports, manufacturing

A recent article featured on Stuff.co.nz highlighted the real difference in views between NZMEA and other broader based Associations. What you hear depends on who you talk to; I only talk to manufacturers and exporters, others have to listen to memberships whose interests are skewed to the domestic economy.

That said not all exporters and manufacturers are suffering from the...

tags: exchange rate, exports, manufacturing, currency, investment

Chasing the lowest cost of production is not always the solution for cost competitiveness. Remembering that manufacturing is the process between concept and consumption, production is only one step.

In today’s world governments and firms are recognising that cheap is not always cheerful – jobs in manufacturing tend to be skilled, diverse and well paid. Equally the manufacturing...

tags: manufacturing, innovation, insourcing, the atlantic, frank owen

John Kay recently wrote an article entitled “Fetish for making things ignores real work”.

The point John makes in this piece is, what he calls “manufacturing fetishism – the idea that manufacturing is the central economic activity and everything else is somehow subordinate” is...

tags: john kay, manufacturing, production

I was recently interviewed by Chris Bell (wordsSHIFTminds) as part of a supplement he was producing for the upcoming CFO Summit.

A number of topics were discussed, ranging from how CFO’s can add to the competitive advantage of their companies and how technology has improved the export capability of New Zealand firms.

We first talked about the current climate for export...

tags: market, chris bell, cfo, hedging