Off the wire
• World lends helping hands to Australia's bushfire injured wildlife  • S. Korea to boost home lease in private sector with tax incentives  • Hanban: Closing of Confucius Institute in Sweden not to trigger ripple effect  • (Sports) Chinese, Singaporean and S. Korean ballkids to feature at Australian Open  • UCLA ranks most applied-to university in U.S.  • Cambodia collects 2.4 bln USD from taxes last year  • Service module of China's lunar orbiter enters 127-minute orbit  • Vietnam considers major bank mergers in 2015: central bank  • Three hikers die in central B.C. province of Canada  • Hong Kong shares up 0.53 pct by midday  
You are here: 　 Home

New Zealand identifies markets to boost agritech exports

Xinhua, January 13, 2015 Adjust font size:

Europe, China and South America are the big growth markets for New Zealand farming technology that could enable the industry to catch up with foreign competitors, said a government-commissioned report out Tuesday.

The report showed agritech exports were worth about 1.2 billion NZ dollars (933.34 million U.S. dollars) a year, with Australia as the biggest market at 400 million U.S. dollars in 2013, followed by the United States (213 million U.S. dollars) and China (74 million U.S. dollars).

However, the report said New Zealand's agritech sector was underperforming in comparison with its three key competitors, Israel, Ireland and the United States.

"Overall Europe, China and South America stand out as future growth potential," said the report commissioned by New Zealand Trade and Enterprise.

"The removal of the dairy quota system opens up new opportunities across Europe. The constant need to increase farm efficiencies in South America drives export growth from New Zealand. The China-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement, plus China's sizable demand for meat and dairy products, provides New Zealand agritech firms with a significant opportunity to be the 'go-to' agritech solutions provider," it said.

Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce said the country's innovative agritechnology systems generated very significant exports in their own right, including animal and seed genetics, fertilizer and agri-chemicals, fencing supplies, farm tools, machinery and systems and pumping and irrigation technologies.

"Australia and the United States are our top agritech export destinations, but the research reveals that exports to Canada, China, South Korea and Saudi Arabia are showing double-digit growth," Joyce said in a statement.

"New Zealand has historically underperformed in agritech exports compared with other advanced agricultural nations. However, our exports are now growing more quickly than our competitors, and opportunities for more growth exist across a wide range of markets. "

Animal health products, medicines and preventative treatments for on-farm use were the largest export earners at 311 million NZ dollars (241.83 million U.S. dollars), followed by fencing supplies and equipment and machinery and systems, each with 307 million NZ dollars (238.72 million U.S. dollars) in export sales. Endi