Josh Tan: Export NZ Executive Director on the resolution of the dairy trade dispute between NZ and Canada

A breakthrough in New Zealand's long-running trade dispute with Canada is expected to benefit our dairy sector, to the tune of about $157 million a year. 

Canada's agreed to meet its obligations under the CPTPP trade deal to provide New Zealand greater access to Canada's dairy market. 

It had previously refused to accept a dispute settlement panel's ruling in New Zealand's favour. 

Export NZ Executive Director Josh Tan told Heather du Plessis-Allan it's an important win. 

He says it's essential that countries follow through on their international trade agreements. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
No surprise predictions that it's going to be our farming
experts that get the economy firing again properly. This is
according to Infometric's latest the economic forecasts, which say it's
only going to be the second half of next year
when we really start to feel the pick up. Josh
Hanner is the executive director of Export New Zealand and
with US.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Good morning, Josh, Good morning Heather.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Are you surprised that so far the doom and gloom
forecasts about the tariffs haven't yet materialized?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
No, Look, I think we aren't too surprised about it.
You know, we have been hit by a ten percent
tariff and I think, as you said before, you know
there are consumers out there who are looking for New
Zealand products.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Do you think, though, given that we had the delay
through the first August, the worst is yet to come?

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Look, I think it's it's hard to say. As you
said before as well, there has been a pause to
those reciprocal tariffs. I think that there is more to come,
you know, depending on what Trump has to say from
the podium. So it's a bit of a wait and
see again.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yeah, is the US still love our red meat?

Speaker 2 (01:02):
I think so look, it's only it's not just red
meat that's really driving things here. You know, it's the
rest of the food and fiber sector as well. You know,
I've got some stats from March twenty twenty five quarter
where deairy was up one point six percent. For it
was up three hundred and thirty two million dollars as well.
But then if you look across the board on on
on New Zealand exports, you know, I think we saw

(01:22):
growth for most categories. There are too. Services exports in
quarter one this year also grew by about eight percent,
by about six hundred and seventy five million dollars.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Right, Is this just into the US?

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Sorry, no, this is this is globally.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
This is everything, all right?

Speaker 2 (01:37):
What about clarified?

Speaker 1 (01:38):
What's going No, that's absolutely fine. What's going on with
China by the way, because we've talked a lot about
the fact that their economy is a bit on the slowdown.
But are they still buying our stuff?

Speaker 2 (01:46):
I think that are still buying our stuff. Yeah, I
think they are still the number one export market for US.
There again, you know, it is sort of quite an
uncertain period just because of the uncertainty that remains around tariffs.
But look, things are still strong for us globally.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Do we need to talk about the price of butter.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
Honey? If you want to, I don't want to.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Do you get restracted by it?

Speaker 2 (02:12):
No? No, looks it is a challenge and I have
sort of spoken about it before. You know, it is
a challenge there for our domestic consumers. But ultimately New
Zealand is part of an international marketplace. We have to
sell ninety percent of our products overseas, and when demand
and prices are strong for New Zealand produce overseas. You know,
this is what this is what happens.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
I mean, it is good for the country, that's the thing. Now,
what do you make of this back down by Canada?

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah, so, look, we're really happy with the result. We're
pleased to see that, you know, a year's long dispute
between New Zealand and Canada has been resolved. I think,
particularly also in the global trade context, just as we've
been talking about it's really essential that these free trade
agreements that we've signed up to, the their function has
agreed to.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yeah, what made them finally back down after all these years?

Speaker 2 (03:01):
I'm not sure. I think again, it might just be
the intentional context. They need to be working with their
free trade partners just like we do.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Yeah, perhaps so, Josh, it's good to talk to you.
Thank you, Josh Tan, who is the executive director at
Export New Zealand. So what if you've been following it,
you'll know that this thing with Canada's been playing out
for a while, right because we all signed up to
the CPTPP and then we wanted to send the dairy
to Canada. They started getting funny about it. They started
blocking the dairy inputs, triggered the compulsory negotiations through the CPTPP.

(03:30):
The panel found in our favor Canada ignoral. Canada is
not the nice guys everybody thinks they are are. They
just completely ignored it, and then we threatened some more
action last year, and then just overnight we've just heard
that they've back down. Finally, this is going to deliver
us up to maybe about one hundred and sixty million
dollars per year in extra export value. And you'd say
thank you to that. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast,

(03:51):
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