California lifts order against NZ kiwifruit

By Dita De Boni

A Californian anti-dumping order against New Zealand kiwifruit has been lifted, but exports to the United States as a whole will never completely recover, says Kiwifruit New Zealand head Doug Voss.

In a joint statement yesterday, Doug Voss and Californian Kiwifruit Commission chairman Doug Phillips said the eight-year-old order would be revoked to build a better kiwifruit market for everyone.

But returns on the furry fruit will never reach the dizzying heights of the early 90s, when NZ was exporting around seven million trays, or $70 million to $80 million dollars worth, Mr Voss said.

From a low of around $3 million in sales to the US when the barriers were first enforced, the board is now exporting around $27 million, or 2.5 million trays.

Kiwifruit NZ will be trying to grow and encourage its US export potential now, but a global shortage of the fruit means "we are not going to be sending Zespri to any market that won't give us top dollar."

With a total kiwifruit business of around $700 million, the board says the US market has dropped away beside the prime European and Japanese markets and it will be very selective as it rebuilds, he said.

Under the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), Chile has built its kiwifruit sales to more than $7 million dollars from nothing eight years ago, which Mr Voss says "hasn't been a wonderful experience for us or the Californian growers.

"We haven't been at war with the Californian growers, but we have put in a lot of hard work to be let back into the major international consumer market."

As part of their new-found relationship, the two boards will be pooling funds for a generic marketing effort to sell US consumers on the health benefits of eating kiwifruit.

Affco chief financial officer Graham List said it was disappointing that the lamb industry in the US had chosen not to accept a similar proposal from New Zealand meat exporters. He said that could have averted the 40 duties the meat industry now faces on lamb exports there.