'It's time to diversify'

TLDR & TLDL: Deputy PM Grant Robertson has made the Government’s strongest pitch yet for exporters to diversify their reliance away from China and commodity exports, saying Covid and the war in Ukraine reinforced the need to spread our eggs into many more baskets, especially into the United States, Europe, Latin America and South East Asia.

His comments come as fears grow that China, which has yet to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, could be pulled behind a new Iron Curtain in the east that accelerates a deglobalisation that is much talked about, but has yet to really begin.

Grant Robertson went out of his way at a rare in-person event with business leaders to put a spotlight on the need to diversify away from China as our largest export and import partner. File photo: Robert Kitchin/Pool

Paid subscribers can see more of Robertson’s comments to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and his answers to my questions after the speech in the podcast above and in quotes below the paywall fold.

Elsewhere in the news this morning:

• oil prices rose over US$120/barrel overnight after Russia reported storm damage at the Black Sea terminal of its Caspian oil pipeline, which carries 1% of the world’s oil;

• Russia announced its gas exports to ‘hostile nations’ would have to be paid for in roubles, instead of US dollars, which pushed up European gas prices 30% overnight and nudged the rouble 5% higher; and,

• last night, Britain unveiled a five pence per litre petrol tax cut for a year and a cut in its basic income tax rate to help consumers there deal with inflation expected to reach 8.7%, and likely to cut real disposable incomes by 2.2%.

I’m in Auckland today and will cover the PM’s news conference here later this morning. I welcome suggested questions from paid subscribers in the comments below.