By Fergus McLean
NB Please note that the photos reproduced here are, of necessity, photos of photos, so are a bit blurry.
The Korea New Zealand Business Council came into being in 1978, in association with the first ever trade mission from New Zealand to the Republic of Korea. The leader of the delegation, and the first Chairman of the Council was Eric Millar, then Deputy Managing Director of Dalgety NZ Ltd, John Ede, Managing Director of Winstone Ltd was the Deputy Leader, and several years later succeeded Eric as Chairman of the Council. The Executive Director of the Council was Esme Marris, a role she was to retain for as long as twenty years. The members of the trade mission attended the first-ever Joint Meeting of the NZ Council with its Korean counterpart on 22 September 1978 at the Chosun Hotel in Seoul (see the photo above). The Chairman of the Korean Council was Mr Harry Cho (pictured right). His keen support of Korea's business relationship with New Zealand was to be very important for many years.
There were 36 members in the New Zealand delegation. The companies/entities represented were:-
Dalgety NZ Ltd
Winstone Ltd
Ashenden Associates
Colyer watson & Co Ltd
R & W Hellaby Ltd
Seatrans Consolidated (NZ) Ltd
Maritime Pacific Group
Thos Borthwick & Sons (Asia) Ltd
FMC (Meat) NZ Ltd
Bing Harris & Co Ltd
J. Wattie Canneries Ltd
M.K.Hunt Foundation Ltd
Fishing Industry Board
NZ Meat exporters Council (Inc.)
Sycamore Lodge Ltd
Wm Scollay & Co. Ltd
CSCS, P &OSN Co.
Sanford Ltd
Moller Holdings Ltd
Winstone Samsung Industries Ltd
Odlins Ltd
Agricultural Products Export Co. Ltd
Maritime Pacific Group
A.M.Satterthwaite & Co. Ltd
National Bank of NZ Ltd
NZ Import-Export Corp.
Shipping Corporation of NZ
Motor Holdings Ltd
Ivon Watkins-Dow Ltd
NZ Forest Service
Wilson Neill Group
The official photo of the delegation perhaps? Eric Millar, Esme Marris, John Ede in the centre.
It is notable how few of these companies still exist today! However it is intriguing in terms of current philosophies that there were two State-owned trading companies represented - the NZ Export-Import Corporation, and the NZ Shipping Corporation, and of course they certainly do not exist anymore! There was a Government Department, the NZ Forest Service, but no sign of the agency then responsible for the Trade Commissioner Service, the Department of Trade and Industry.
At the time of the Joint Meeting, the two local English-language newspapers both published full four page colour supplements about trade with New Zealand. The then New Zealand Ambassador, Ken Cunningham (front page article), and our first Trade Commissioner to Korea, Mark Crystall, both provided extensive articles. A resident NZ Embassy had only been in place for six years at that stage, and the first Trade Commissioner had arrived only a few months before the trade mission.
There was considerable advertising in both supplements by Korean companies. In the "Korea Times" supplement the front page advertisement was from Samhwa Co. Ltd sub-titled 'Korea's General Trading Company'. Half of the back page was an ad from Ssangyong Paper Co Ltd. On the inside pages there was a large ad entitled 'Korea and New Zealand Shake Hands' from The Lucky Group, especially Bando Sangsa Co Ltd, and the Gold Star Electric Co Ltd. Also the Chonju Paper Mfg Co Ltd advertised that it was proceeding with a joint-venture programme in NZ for pulp production - 'the first overseas mill in the field of Korean paper manufacturing'. Smaller advertisements were placed by Hyundai Heavy Industries Co Ltd, and Kooil Industrial Co Ltd.
The supplement in the "Korea Herald" also featured articles by the Ambassador Cunningham and Trade Commissioner Crystall. The latter put forward the need for free trade arrangements between the two countries - a man before his time perhaps? Given that this was six years before we signed our first-ever free trade agreement, the CER agreement with Australia, and 37 years before the Korea NZ FTA started operating.
The prime advertising space on the front page was taken by Samsung Co Ltd, a name New Zealanders have certainly come to know well in more recent years, but no mention of mobile phones in those days! Other advertisers were Oyang Fisheries Co Ltd, Dae-Sun Shipbuilding and Engineering Co Ltd, Sammisa (importing logs from NZ), Korea General Foods Co Ltd, European American Corporation, Taihan Electric Wire Co Ltd and Silla Trading Co Ltd. It is also noteworthy that the front page prominently featured a photograph of the then Prime Minister Robert Muldoon and Mrs Muldoon.
Unfortunately we do not have a record of the actual programme of the joint meeting. Nor do we know what other appointments were undertaken. However we do have a picture (left) of a meeting with the President of the Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry attended on the New Zealand side (right to left) by Eric Millar, the leader of the NZ delegation, John Ede, the Deputy Leader and Esme Marris, the Executive Director of the Council.
Ironically, at the time of this first ever business delegation to Korea, NZ was still, 25 years after the conclusion of the Korean war, providing development assistance programmes to Korea. This mainly consisted of scholarships and some flagship projects; NZ was involved in the development of model beef and dairy farms and the provision of technical exchanges, for example. MFAT has records of 208 Korean scholarship students who came to NZ over 1963-1978, and know that there were more in the 1980s.