No trade issues in China: Fonterra

AUCKLAND: Fonterra Cooperative Group has not faced any issues getting its products into China, where its business hit some speed wobbles when the butter market slowed.

The world’s biggest dairy exporter counts China as one of its most important markets and has been a beneficiary of a burgeoning middle class in the world’s most populous nation.

Tensions have emerged between members of the Five Eyes intelligence partnership — the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand — and China over accusations that the Asian nation’s 2017 national intelligence law heightens the risk that technology firms such as Huawei Technologies will be used for espionage in vital western infrastructure.

Anecdotes about New Zealand firms having issues clearing customs and an Air New Zealand plane turning around en route to China over sloppy paperwork are being interpreted as signs of a cooling trading relationship.

Fonterra is among New Zealand’s biggest players in China and says it has not witnessed any issues.

‘‘We’ve not had any issues with trade between Fonterra and China,’’ chief executive Miles Hurrell told a briefing in Auckland on Thursday.

China delivers Fonterra’s highest margins in consumer and foodservices, where buyers are willing to pay a premium for highquality food. Weaker butter prices made buyers put off their purchases during the six months through January, and Fonterra wound down its inventories. — BusinessDesk