Ta Ann hopes an Asian trade mission next month will help to secure sales and boost confidence in the Tasmanian forestry industry. Source: The Examiner
Company delegates will travel with Premier Lara Giddings and delegates from another 30 organisations on the 16-day trip through Indonesia, Hong Kong, China and Japan in September.
The mission will focus on promoting products and services the state could offer the regions, as well as attracting more investment in agriculture, forestry and mining.
A Ta Ann spokesman said company delegates would join Ms Giddings in Japan, where they would tell the market what the government had achieved with the forestry deal.
“We now have certainty of supply and they should now be confident to buy Tasmanian products,” the spokesman said.
“We don’t think it will get the sales that we lost back immediately, but this is a step in a positive direction to secure and get more sales in the market.”
The company’s Japan sales halved early last year because of “persistent market attacks on our customers by environmental groups,” Ta Ann senior resources manager Greg Hickey said.
Other companies to join Ms Giddings on the mission include Neville Smith Timber, Forestry Tasmania, Fruit Growers Tasmania, the University of Tasmania, the Launceston City Council and Grange Resources.
The two-week itinerary includes meeting with senior Indonesian government ministers, the China International Foreign Investment and Trade Expo and the Asia Fruit Logistica Expo in Hong Kong.
