Photo courtesy: NZTE

We were in Kuala Lumpur recently supporting our client New Zealand Trade & Enterprise during the signing of a Free Trade Agreement between Malaysia and New Zealand. It has been a demanding but rewarding four weeks of planning, brainstorming and joint implementation with the NZTE that we at Rice Communications are proud to be part of.

In tandem with the NZTE teams in Singapore and Malaysia, we managed to run a tight, successful media campaign that included back-to-back interviews for NZ Prime Minister John Key and Trade Minister Tim Groser on Bloomberg TV Asia Pacific; interview for NZ Trade Commissioner Grant Fuller with the Malaysian News Agency, Bernama; published a commentary by NZ High Commissioner David Kersey in The Star (Malaysia); and arranged interviews for the business delegates with key Malaysian trade publications.

Leading up to the signing in the evening of October 26 at the Hilton KL, there were media site visits to New Zealand companies Fonterra and Datacom, and business forums arranged for the NZ and Malaysian business delegation. The local and foreign press of Malaysia then came to cover the FTA signing ceremony, following a press conference at the Prime Minister’s Office in Putrajaya organised by the Malaysia International Trade & Ministry’s Office.

The platform provided multifaceted angles and opportunities to engage the media. However as it was anchored on the premise of bilateral partnership, we also had to face a fair amount of skepticism from the press. When I was pitching the FTA story to a journalist from a key regional business publication for example, I got this rather caustic comment that all FTAs are the same. “What’s exciting about it? Same story being repeated over and over and it’s just motherhood statements.” Refusing to get drawn into a losing battle, I skirted the issue by offering another viewpoint.

It’s true; “partnership” is probably one of the hackneyed terms in the PR lexicon. However where appropriate, as in the case of FTAs and other forms of bilateral or massive corporate undertakings, partnership may sound like another motherhood statement, but it accurately depicts the essence of the initiative.

That Malaysia is New Zealand’s 8th largest export market accounting for almost a billion dollars in exports in 2008 did not happen overnight. It is the by-product of partnerships: of public and private sector building the linkages, capacities, and conditions that allow for economic gains to manifest and for people to partake of their benefits in the long-run.

Trade agreement bolster what has already been established over time. Having had a brief stint in the legislative branch of government, I know for a fact that, albeit politicized sometimes, trade agreements are inarguably the result of intense and thorough study, deliberations and collaborative effort.

Without trade agreements, it would take longer for nations to competitively expand offshore and harness collective strengths to achieve sustainable and inclusive economic growth. On the other hand, with it in place, nations can embark on deeper engagements economically, socially, politically and culturally. And, it is this nature of trade agreements – encompassing and characteristically hopeful, that sometimes warrant motherhood statements.