Hopes for meat trade revival

Prime Minister Helen Clark says her talks yesterday with Malaysian Premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in Kuala Lumpur have raised hopes of a solution to that nation's ban on some New Zealand meat.

The Prime Minister said she had received an undertaking that a response on the Malaysian halal accreditation agency's April audit on New Zealand meat plants should be available soon.

"New Zealand products are seen as high quality in this market so there is a desire to get it open again to us ... so that was very, very positive." The cost to New Zealand's trade has been up to $60 million a year.