NZ exports highly exposed to China - Westpac

China is easily New Zealand's biggest export destination. Photo / Hawke's Bay Today.

Westpac has highlighted the growing importance of China as New Zealand's biggest trading partner, identifying the tourism, seafood, education and kiwifruit sectors as having the highest exposures to the People's Republic.

New Zealand exporters have tapped heavily into this market since it signed the China Free Trade Agreement in 2008.

China is now comfortably their largest market, accounting for the biggest share in all but a few sectors.

As exporters have shifted focus to China, New Zealand's exports have become less diversified, the bank said.

"This concentration comes with risk and thus a trade-off with potential profits," Westpac senior agri economist Nathan Penny said in a paper.

Over recent years, China has in some cases restricted access to its lucrative market in order to advance its wider strategic interests.

At times China has used border delays, de-certification, social media influencing campaigns, and official statements in order to impact trade in particular products and from particular countries.

Furthermore, the trade rules that New Zealand businesses operate under in other markets are not necessarily relevant nor enforceable in China, and breaches of intellectual property rights have occurred.

Importantly, the risk is not simply a question of how much a sector exports to China.

"We believe the more relevant questions are how strategically important is New Zealand's export supply to China and/or how readily China can source supply from either other countries or domestically," Penny said.

DAIRY
Export value: $5.4b
Risk: Low

Penny saw the dairy sector's exposure risk as being low.

"This judgment is largely based on the fact that China is very dependent on New Zealand dairy imports," he said.

In 2019, New Zealand accounted for over half of China's imports. In other words, China has very few other options available to fill its dairy production deficit, he said.

Penny said dairy is a "strategic" food for China, with few direct substitutes.

China's dietary guidelines recommend a daily intake of 300g of dairy, well beyond current per capita consumption levels.

Several Chinese agencies, including the Chinese Centre for Disease Control, have crafted guidelines aimed at lifting dairy consumption in a bid to lift public health and immunity levels amid the Covid outbreak.

China's dairy industry is also struggling to keep up with domestic consumption growth, meaning that imports will continue to play an oversized role in meeting dairy demand. These struggles may be due to China's competitive disadvantage in dairy.

China is important to New Zealand's dairy industry but Westpac appportions a low risk to that trade. Photo / NZ Herald.

Anecdotally, production costs are in excess of NZ$10 per kg of milk solids compared to New Zealand's average cost of circa NZ$6 per kg.

From a protein perspective, China is a relatively efficient producer of pork and chicken.

Penny said that over the long term China is likely to focus its scarce agricultural resources on production on these instead of dairy.

Similarly, Chinese dairy production suffers from a poor reputation in terms of food safety and quality.

"The Chinese government is acutely aware of these facts and products like infant formula are often regarded as essential household items," Penny said.

Any disruptions to supply potentially could be a social and political flashpoint that Chinese officials will be keen to avoid.

MEAT
Export value: $3.4b
Risk: Medium

In the beef export market, New Zealand is a small-to-medium global player, ranking the 7th largest country in export values terms in 2019. In that sense, China is not reliant on New Zealand supply.

For sheepmeat, New Zealand is a large exporter, ranking second behind Australia in 2019. However, New Zealand does export more than five times the amount of sheepmeat than third-placed UK.

Penny said the availability of substitutes matters.

New Zealand's meat exports to China are worth $3.4b a year. Photo / NZ Herald

In that sense, New Zealand's combined beef and sheepmeat exports can relatively easily be substituted with meat from other countries and/or by other meats like pork or chicken whether sourced domestically in China or via exports.

More broadly, there are a range of proteins which can be substituted for meat, including seafood and plant- based proteins.

"Nonetheless, New Zealand is a highly reliable source of meat supply and this fact helps partially offset the lack of scale. In particular, the quality of New Zealand's meat is high from a food safety perspective," Penny said.

WOOD
Export value: $2.9b
Risk: Medium

Most of New Zealand's wood exports to China are in the form of logs. New Zealand is very reliant on Chinese exports, with China's share of New Zealand exports the highest of all the export categories we discuss in this paper.

China's share has also steadily increased over the past 10 years or so to the point where other markets such Japan, Korea and India are very much secondary.

Most of New Zealand's wood exports to China are in the form of logs. Photo / NZ Herald

FRUIT
Export value: $0.7b
Risk: Medium

Overall, New Zealand's fruit sector has medium exposure risk to China.

While New Zealand is the world's largest kiwifruit exporter and the fifth largest apple exporter, fruit is very readily substitutable. New Zealand represents 4.5 per cent of China's fruit imports.

SEAFOOD
Export value: $0.7b
Risk: High

The New Zealand seafood sector is highly exposed to China.

Over a third of New Zealand's exports are destined for China.

Meanwhile, New Zealand is a very small supplier to the Chinese market, accounting for only 3.1 per cent of China's seafood imports in 2019.

"In other words, China can easily find substitutes for New Zealand seafood."

WINE
Export value: $0.03b
Risk: Low

China only accounts for 1.5 per cent of New Zealand's wine exports.

There is a developing market for red wine in China, but less demand for white wines.
As a result, New Zealand's concentration on Sauvignon Blanc means the sector is underweight in the Chinese wine market relative to its global market share.

TOURISM
Export Value: $1.9b
Risk: High

While China only accounts for around 14 per cent of tourism export values, China has been one of New Zealand's fastest growing markets and Chinese tourists are relatively high spenders once in New Zealand.

"Moreover, New Zealand is a very small niche market compared to tourism heavyweights such as France, Spain and the US.

"In other words, Chinese tourists could comfortably fully divert away from New Zealand to any number of destinations globally."

EDUCATION
Export value: $1.3b
Risk: High

The New Zealand university sector is a small player in a very large market, dominated by heavyweights, the US and UK.

Of the top ranked universities globally, five and four of the top 10 are located in the US and UK, respectively.

For an indication of New Zealand's relatively modest standing globally, only Auckland University is ranked in the top 100.