The renewal of a partnership between freight manager Kotahi and global shipping company AP Moller-Maersk is being hailed as providing New Zealand exporters with certainty.
The two parties have renewed their current partnership for another 10 years, which they say provides NZ international trade with stability and resilience, too.
Kotahi chief executive David Ross said after shipping disruptions from the covid pandemic and geopolitical events, the partnership with Maersk provides exporters with a proven supply chain through which goods can get to markets around the world.
“The magnitude of this agreement is big, even by global standards, with an estimated $160 billion value of primary export products given greater certainty and capability around delivery to market,” he said.
In the past 10 years the partnership has shipped 1.8 million TEU (20 foot equivalent units) or 23 million tonnes of NZ cargo to markets, the majority being primary industry products including dairy, meat, seafood, horticulture and forestry.
NZ is small in the scheme of global trade, which became apparent during the major shipping delays and disruption caused by port and shipping congestion during the pandemic.
Ross said Maersk responded by providing extra shipping capacity and containers for NZ exporters because of the partnership with Kotahi.
“If the partnership did not exist, I doubt that would have happened,” he said.
Ross said that response and the freight service and capacity offered by this partnership renewal should give exporters confidence.
He said global supply chains face major changes in the coming years from geopolitical tension and climate change.
This partnership will ensure NZ is involved as those challenges are confronted and changes occur.
Maersk is aiming to be carbon zero by 2040.
Kotahi was founded in 2011 by Fonterra and Silver Fern Farms and in 2014 signed its first long-term agreement with Maersk and the Port of Tauranga.
Maersk, in partnership with Waikato-Tainui, recently opened a $140m 18,000m sq cold store facility at Ruakura, which can house nearly 30,000 pallets in both cold rooms and blast freezers.
