Former WTO boss now a counsellor for Fonterra

By NZPA

Thursday 9th January 2003

New Zealand's biggest company, dairy multinational Fonterra Co-operative Group, has hired former prime minister Mike Moore to work for it on global trade issues.

The part-time job means Mr Moore, 53, will be able to remain in Geneva, Switzerland, where he last year stepped down as director-general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

Fonterra has appointed Mr Moore as its "senior counsellor" on trade and global strategy for two years.

"Mr Moore will operate from his base in Geneva," Fonterra chief executive Craig Norgate said in a statement today.

Mr Moore headed the WTO from September 1999 until August 2002. He split the job's term with Thailand's deputy prime minister Supachai Panitchpakdi after the global body deadlocked over who should get the job.

Mr Norgate said Mr Moore was well-known internationally as an articulate proponent of the advantages of a free and fair global trading system.

"As the world's single largest exporter of dairy products, responsible for a third of international dairy trade across borders, that system is of critical importance to Fonterra," Mr Norgate said.

Fonterra lost its previous main strategist on international trade, Nigel Mitchell, when he died in May 2002.

Mr Norgate is seen as having more of a background in production and corporate sectors of the industry, and was expected to rely heavily on Mr Mitchell, who had worked over nearly 20 years on gaining a competitive edge in the global dairy trade.

Today, Mr Norgate said Fonterra stood to benefit greatly from the strategic advice offered by Mr Moore, drawing on his vast experience, expertise and contacts with leading figures in the international trade community.

Fonterra currently exports to more than 140 different countries and accounts for 31 percent of the tiny proportion of the world's milk flows which are traded internationally. Most milk is consumed in the country in which it is produced.

Mr Moore, 53, ran for the WTO job largely at his own expense, reportedly investing life savings of about $2 million in the bid.

The Government paid $250,000 for costs associated with his campaign, and spent another $600,000 in staff and communication time supporting the bid.

The most high-profile event of Mr Moore's three-year term, a ministerial conference in North America, degenerated into the notorious "Battle in Seattle" with acrimonious failure inside the conference and fights between rioters and police on the streets.

"I deserve an F for Seattle," he said later. "While it may not have been my fault, it is certainly my responsibility, and I didn't see certain things coming."

Subsequently, Governments only managed to agree to a new round of trade liberalising talks in November 2001 -- this time safely out of reach of protesters in the Qatari capital, Doha.

On stepping down, Mr Moore was reportedly frustrated at being sidelined as the task of trying to complete the negotiations -- by the deadline of 2005 -- fell to his successor. He remained in Geneva until shortly before Christmas to complete his ninth book, this time on his experiences at the WTO.

Mr Moore said he had believed in free trade long before it became a buzzword. His own research showed New Zealand's small economy desperately needed access to foreign markets. Global agreements through bodies such as the WTO could give weak nations the same footing as strong ones.

Mr Moore was trade minister in the 1984-90 Labour government. When Prime Minister David Lange resigned in 1989, Mr Moore unsuccessfully challenged Geoffrey Palmer for the top job. Only 13 months on, Mr Moore was given the top job in an apparent bid to reduce the electoral loss seven weeks later.

Fonterra has not disclosed how much it is paying Mr Moore for his work, but former parliamentarians can get 90 percent of their international travel costs paid by the taxpayer, while former prime ministers get an annuity of up to $32,000. In New Zealand, they also receive free domestic air travel for themselves and their spouse, a self-drive car and a chauffeur-driven VIP car when needed.

Mr Moore said today that the role would see him working about three weeks a year for the company as a special counsellor on trade and global policy.

"During a year I will spend a couple of days in Washington for them. If something blows up in Venezuela, perhaps I can help there," he said.

Fonterra had good trade policy teams in each region and he would help it with market access and if "they have problems with customs departments or on the waterfront or with governments".

He would also offer some guidance on what was going on with competitors and free trade agreements.

"Say, if Chile does an agreement with the US. What does that mean for the dairy industry? What does Nafta (North American Free Trade Agreement) mean? Does it mean Minnesota dairy guys can get into Mexico and New Zealand can't?

"If we can't, how do we navigate it? What are the options for joint ventures? Why don't we buy an interest in the company to get over the wall?."

Mr Moore said he had dealt with a lot of corporations that were Fonterra's competitors and he had contacts with key players in various capitals.

"Frequently there are bilateral problems. You know a country wants to give dairy aid to poor people and that can lower prices. How that is navigated can mean a lot to New Zealand," he said.

Fonterra exported to more than 140 countries and in most of those he had contacts and "knowledge and a reputation that hopefully will be useful to New Zealand and this company".

Mr Moore has also been contracted to advise Trade Minister Jim Sutton as a special trade envoy.

The dairy industry was in much better shape than it had been for years due to payback from the Uruguay round of world trade negotiations which had cut the mountains of butter and huge subsidies, he said.

As a result of the WTO negotiations in Doha last year, Europeans were for the first time arguing and negotiating to do away with subsidies based on production.

Mr Moore will be involved with think-tanks, universities, and corporates' research programmes over the next two years.

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