Editorial: Passage to India
OPINION: Even before the National-led coalition came into power, India was very much at the fore of its trade agenda.
News of plans to upgrade New Zealand’s free trade agreement with China should open trade doors for more timber exports to China.
The FTA would also give more employment in New Zealand, says the New Zealand Wood Council chair, Brian Stanley.
The Prime Minister, John Key, says New Zealand’s main aim in the China FTA upgrade is to reduce dairy quotas, but he also emphasised other improved trade prospects in China, including timber exports.
New Zealand dairy exports to China are presently worth $2.9 billion a year, while forest products are New Zealand’s second most important export to China, at $1.8 billion a year.
Stanley says the New Zealand negotiators will be looking at current non-tariff barriers for New Zealand timber exports to China.
“The Chinese timber industry has all sorts of government assistance against imports, and even when we are competing against other exporters there, such as the US and Canada, the Chinese regulations are stacked against us,” says Stanley.
“We’d also want more transparency in their phytosanitary rules.”
Stanley says the New Zealand industry would like to see the China FTA result in more production and work for processors in New Zealand.
“At the moment China takes more than two-thirds of our log exports, but it lags behind the United States, Australia and Japan for importing processed timber from New Zealand, such as sawn timber, panels and paper.”
A vet is calling for all animals to be vaccinated against a new strain of leptospirosis (lepto) discovered on New Zealand dairy farms in recent years.
Two major red meat sector projects are getting up to a combined $1.7 million in funding from the New Zealand Meat Board (NZMB).
Angus Barr and Tara Dwyer of The Wandle, Lone Star Farms in Strath Taieri have been named the Regional Supreme Winners at the Otago Ballance Farm Environment Awards in Dunedin.
OPINION: The distress that the politicians and bureaucrats are causing to the people of Wairoa and the wider Tairāwhiti is unforgivable.
Dairy
Rural banker Rabobank is partnering with Food Rescue Kitchen on a new TV series which airs this weekend that aims to shine a light on the real and growing issues of food waste, food poverty and social isolation in New Zealand.
OPINION: The new government has clearly signalled big cuts across the public service.
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