Feature: FTA with China brings about more trade, transparency

As a sales manager and marketing director of a New Zealand famous winery, Martin Tutty had never thought that he needed to come to China so many times a year.

Martin's story has become a common experience of his kiwi peers.

Since China and New Zealand signed FTA in 2008, the Chinese market is regarded as an important business engine. Now Martin spend three or four months a year in China, busy with meetings with local distributors in different Chinese cities.

Doing business in a market far away from home, New Zealand exporters must adapt to many unfamiliar circumstances in China, such as cultural differences, regulations and consumers'habits.

For example, New Zealanders love white wine, such as sauvignon blanc. However, Chinese customers prefer red wine, which means a whole different marketing strategy must be adopted in the Chinese market.

The process is not easy."But, it's all worth," Martin told Xinhua recently.

The winery has set up social media accounts in China, such as Weibo, keeping intense interaction with customers. During his stay in China, Martin talked with sales representatives in different cities, discussing their problems. "China is more complex than any other market we've dealt with. There are entire categories which don't exist in other countries, such as banqueting and bulk-purchase. But now the pay-off from those years of perseverance is starting to show,"Martin said.

Martin and the winery he works for are only a miniature of trade booming between China and New Zealand after the FTA. Kiwi wine, meat, seafood, honey now have all appeared on the Chinese dining table. Many kiwi companies have benefited a lot during the process.

Meanwhile, Weiguo Huang and his team are focusing on another challenge. Because of the trade booming, Chinese customers raised questions about the authenticity of kiwi products. How to prove a food product"made in New Zealand"and conform to Chinese quality criteria? The answer is food tracking system.

As a president of New Zealand-China Food Safety Association, Huang and his team cooperate with the Chinese authorities, trying to prove to Chinese customers the New Zealand famous slogan"100 percent pure".

At the beginning, Huang tried computer chips, which are quite costly. Fortunately, smartphones provided a solution. A QR code is developed to fully bear product information to show from where and how the products come onto the shelves of Chinese supermarkets. Anti-forgery ink and other security means also enhanced the tracking system.

With the QR code, a Chinese customer can simply swap his phone to know which winery a bottle of wine is from, or which farm a meat product is from.

This is just a beginning. Huang said that his team will focus on the transparency of New Zealand products on Chinese market to secure reputation of kiwi food in China.

It's all begins with the FTA. To Martin and Huang, FTA means more trade, more communication and more economic dependency. Endi