Bryan Carter has just joined CCIWA’s International Trade and Investment Centre, bringing with him decades of experience working with importers and exporters and in border control.
He joins the ITIC team as an International Trade Adviser at a time of renewed focus on importing and exporting, with the recent launch of the State Government’s Asian Engagement Strategy and with a proliferation of Free Trade Agreements negotiated by the Federal Government.
Carter has immense expertise in importing, exporting and supply chains, having spent almost two decades working for top four accounting firms including PwC and EY after carving out his early career at Border Force.
In his most recent role at PwC prior to joining CCIWA, Carter helped some of Perth’s biggest companies including Fortescue Metals Group and Perth Mint with supply chain accreditation.
He’s “seen it all” when it comes to what products and services can be exported and imported and says his passion lies with helping importers and exporters, especially at the SME level achieve their goals more efficiency.
“A lot of smaller business don’t know about it but they can get all sorts of concessions from the Federal Government themselves, which can make life a lot easier for them and that’s something I can help them with,” he says.
“But the interesting thing and the thing that I find really exciting about working with the SMEs is that the people that are driving those businesses are very passionate about it.
“They don’t have thousands of shareholders or anything like that, this is their business, their livelihood.”
Carter fell into international trade after completing university when he took on a role with Border Force, then known as Customs.
His 20 years there included stints in Brazil and Canada dealing with technical dumping, an unfair trading practice where goods are sold for less in Australia than the country of origin.
“We went out various manufacturers in Brazil because the commodity that we were looking at was shoe leather coming from there, which was impacting on manufacturers here in Australia, like Blundstone and those sorts of guys in Tasmania.”
He also worked on the Border Force equivalent of the drug squad, doing surveillance and under cover operations looking for narcotics on vessels.
“You can only do it for a couple of years, and then you’d get known around the place so you had to move on and do something else,” he says.
Carter looks forward to using his experience to help WA businesses grow through international trade and to take advantage of incentives on offer from the State and Federal governments.
►Need help growing your business internationally? Talk to a CCIWA trade consultant on (08) 9365 7620 or visit CCIWA’s International Trade and Investment Centre to find out how we can help you expand your business.
