MPI’s Director of Border Clearance Services, Steve Gilbert, recently gave an overview of the very real biosecurity challenges New Zealand faces at the border to KVH members at its AGM.

Steve also outlined what MPI is doing to mitigate these risks and highlighted the critical role a working partnership between government and industry through GIA plays to support this.

Some key points from Steve’s presentation:

• The world is rapidly evolving and our biosecurity system must adapt with it
• The current system won’t be enough in the next 5-10 years
• Air and cruise ship passenger numbers are increasing (air +23% and cruise ship +5% by 2021), trade and freight is increasing (+41% by 2021) and express freight volumes are increasing (+33% by 2021)
• These increases escalate the risk at the NZ border
• The border clearance levy comes into effect on 1 December 2015 – providing a revenue base to fund increasing passenger numbers
• The level of effort and intensity by MPI is increasing to help mitigate border risks. This includes more x-ray inspectors, mobile x-ray, increased auditing of pest free areas in Australia, more detector dogs used throughout airports and the border clearance levy

Click here to view Steve’s presentation.