The Position of New Zealand’s Dairy Trade
New Zealand is one of the world leaders in milk production. In 2018 the island country produced 21.95 million metric tons of milk. A vast amount of milk produced domestically is exported, but also New Zealanders are among the top milk consumers in the world. The country’s 2018 output in milk consumption per capita amounted to 105.26 kilograms. The most popular dairy product exported by New Zealand is Whole Milk Powder (WMP). Only 5% of the commodity produced domestically is kept for non-foreign purposes, with the rest of the milk produced in New Zealand processed to be exported. The biggest trade partners are China, Australia, the United States, United Arab Emirates, and Japan.
Currently, the dairy export state is undergoing major changes. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, New Zealand’s trade balance was positively affected. In August 2020, the country recorded its biggest trade surplus since 2014 – when the last dairy boom occurred. The noticed trade surplus was $1.3 billion annual goods. Referring to the pandemic circumstances, an economist familiar with the matter, expressed an opinion: “That’s notable, given predictions the Covid-19 outbreak would lead to a broad slowdown in international trade and highlights that NZ’s key export sectors – like food production – are likely to remain more resilient than other industries.”. The first four months of the 2019/20 dairy export season has set records, boosted by higher prices and volumes. What is more, in the ongoing 2019/20 dairy export season, the value of dairy exports went up by 17 percent from August to December 2019 compared with the same period 2018, with quantity up 6.7 percent.
