Ardern announces trade board

A new advisory board on trade would guide the Government’s ‘‘progressive trade agenda’’, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says.

In one of her first announcements following her return to work from six weeks’ maternity leave, Ardern said yesterday that the advisory board was the next step in pushing the Government’s ‘‘Trade for All’’ agenda, announced in April.

Opposition leader Simon Bridges said the Government was trying to fix the problem with ‘‘meaningless marketing’’.

The new board would undertake constant consultation with business and other relevant groups as the Government progresses its free trade negotiations and embarks on new ones. The Trade for All agenda document has also been opened for public consultation.

The new board announcement was part of a play to reach out to business as confidence plummets.

The new trade board would be chaired by trade expert David Pine. The rest of the members would be announced later.

A new ‘‘jobs initiative’’ would be launched by the Prime Minister on Thursday and Finance Minister Grant Robertson would be delivering a major speech aimed at reassuring business of the Government’s economic agenda.

Ardern said trade policy was ‘‘obviously integral to our work to support businesses and exporters’’.

‘‘What we want to do is step back from having that conversation piece by piece through individual trade agreements, and develop our principles and values that we as a Government are pursuing in our trade agreements, that has buy-in for all of New Zealand.’’

Trade Minister David Parker said the ambition of New Zealand’s trade agenda should be to ‘‘lift the wealth of our country through better jobs and growth opportunities’’ rather than simply a numerical target for free traded exports.

The announcement comes as Treasury issued a warning yesterday that declining confidence and a cooling housing market posed risks for the Government’s finances.

In its monthly economic indicators statement, Treasury said that while there were positives, such as a 7.5 per cent increase in new dwelling consents in the June quarter, up from 6.2 per cent in the March quarter, the risks appeared to be for lower growth.

The new board was part of a play to reach out to business as confidence plummets.