NZ 4th for trade competitiveness

Stuff reports:

New Zealand is well ahead of Australia in trade competitiveness, according to a new international report.

The Geneva-based World Economic Forum’s enabling trade index for 2014 ranks New Zealand fourth out of 138 countries, up from fifth when the index was last released in 2012.

4th isn’t bad.

It assessed countries in four areas – market access, border administration, infrastructure, and the operating environment.

New Zealand performed well in most categories, getting an overall score of 5.2 out of seven.

However, it rated poorly in foreign-market access, coming in 65th at just 2.6 out of seven.

A big part of this was due to high cost or delays caused by international transportation, which the report found to be the most problematic factor for both importers and exporters.

Almost one in five respondents (18.7 per cent) picked it as the biggest problem for exporting, narrowly ahead of tariff barriers abroad (18.4 per cent).

Still a lot of work to be done, but things are looking good for exporters and importers.