The last quarter has been a busy time for RPM’s Sales Director Mark Vincent who has been busy showing the world how great New Zealand, and in particular RPM International Tool and Die, is for doing business with.

Mark recently visited Chile to re-establish direct contact with a group of companies and further promote RPM’s tool making capabilities. Mark says the perfect time to do business with NZ is now. The falling NZD exchange rate gives global companies a chance to purchase premium quality tool manufacturing services at a great rate.

Exchange rate fluctuations alone mean that quotes in July are effectively 15% more affordable than in March.

Mark visited eleven Chilean companies who were interested in receiving competitive quotations for tooling from RPM. We consider this early days for building strong business relationships and look forward to cementing these valuable partnerships further.

Mark was keen to describe his impression of Chilean businesses and how dedicated and professional the people he met were.

He sees the Chilean plastics industry as a changing field, with new attitudes to developing new custom tooling emerging. With a flat economy across all sectors except the growing plastics industry, investment in new plastic injection moulding tooling is simply good business practice.

The business tour left Mark with high hopes for future business opportunity. He says “It was clear that these companies recognise RPM as a world class tooling supplier and that they understand our capabilities and quality standards. People told me they were very impressed by our after sales support system.”

Mark says that Chileans are very comfortable dealing with New Zealanders, due to a range of commonalities between the two countries, and familiarity with the Carter Holt Harvey brand which is an icon in the forestry industry and has a large presence as a trusted brand in Chile. “Chileans are very comfortable with New Zealand products from the forestry industry but are not necessarily aware of the Tool and Die industry.”

In Chile each company appears to have an identified niche in plastic injection moulding, rather than offering a range of products to cater to wider customer requirements. For example, one company may specialise in thin wall packaging with in mould labelling (IML), another in houseware products and a third in industrial products.

RPM has the scope, knowledge and experience to diversify across all of these sectors and more, ensuring that the requirements of the entire plastics industry can be met.

Although the plastics industry is small in Chile, it is of a viable size for a New Zealand based company like RPM – who intend to take hold of every possible opportunity and make it a success story.

Of Chile, Mark says “It’s a great place, the Chileans have the same attitude as New Zealanders, and they have a similar climate, heaps of history – and great fishing!”

Geographically Chile lies in a similar linear location, only 6000 miles to the East of New Zealand.

Chile and New Zealand are also two of only four countries that have ratified the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement in 2006. A further 8 countries are in negotiations, offering opportunities for all countries involved. The Partnership Agreement is essentially a free trade agreement, of great benefit to Chile and New Zealand.

RPM are keen to keep in touch with Chilean contacts to demonstrate our key dependability and stability within the industry, and are constantly growing business relationships in this area. It is essential that we are able to continuously demonstrate our lower production costs, excellent production lead times and innovative designs and manufacturing processes.

Mark compliments New Zealand Trade and Enterprise who provided an excellent service through their good understanding of companies to approach and how to engage them. The NZTE Chilean representative in Santiago, Christian Brauchle, set up appointments and accompanied Mark to meetings with key personnel from companies. His presence mitigated any cultural gaps and aided the natural development of business relationships, breaking down language barriers – and crucially ensuring that Mark didn’t get lost in Santiago! Their services can be found at www.nzte.govt.nz.

Mark didn’t have much free time to experience the local culture and highlights of Chile. However he was keen to try out their famous fishing, and whilst on holiday in Cabo San Lucas, took a boat trip to indulge his hobby. The trip resulted in a great catch!

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