Joe Biden’s controversial fist-bump with Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), the Saudi crown prince, may help New Zealand to forge its own new direction in the Middle East.

The US president’s trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia showed that despite real concerns over human rights, the Middle East’s strategic importance in the current global geopolitical jigsaw puzzle cannot be ignored.

Biden’s meeting with MBS in the Saudi port city of Jeddah – four years after the horrific killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi – was a triumph of realism over idealism.

In essence, Biden’s trip was all about convincing Saudi Arabia to increase oil production to try to bring down the global fuel prices that have risen sharply since Russia invaded Ukraine in February.

Biden might have called Saudi Arabia a ‘pariah’ for the Khashoggi killing during the 2020 presidential election campaign – but Vladimir Putin is now Washington’s main adversary.

And in the Middle East itself, the threat of Iran – which the US claims is about to supply military drones to Russia for use against Ukraine – is also a higher priority for Biden.

New Zealand policymakers will be watching Biden’s moves in the Middle East.

After all, New Zealand has also been trying to rekindle its own relationship with the Gulf. Foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta visited New Zealand’s lavish, $NZ60m pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on her inaugural overseas trip in November last year – and she also managed to fit in a side-trip to influential Qatar while she was in the region.

Mahuta pointedly avoided a trip to Riyadh, but Biden’s meeting with MBS will be a signal to New Zealand and other Western countries that the time is right to bring Saudi Arabia in from the cold.

The wealthy Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – a six-country grouping made up of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE – is already New Zealand’s eighth-biggest trading partner.

It holds the potential to become an even more significant market for New Zealand exports, especially in the key areas of meat and dairy.

Indeed, the very modest gains achieved by New Zealand for meat and dairy in its recent free trade agreement (FTA) with the European Union mean that improving trade with other key markets – such as the Middle East – is more important than ever.

As Western attitudes towards China have soured, New Zealand ministers have been keen to make trade diversification a major priority.

To that end, trade minister Damien O’Connor embarked on a major mission to the Gulf in March to try and restart New Zealand’s troubled free trade negotiations with the GCC.

A deal with the bloc was signed in 2009 but remains unratified from the Gulf side.

The last big push to try and get the deal over the line was in 2015, under the previous National-led government, when Prime Minister John Key toured Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Around the same time, the ill-fated ‘Saudi sheep deal’ was devised by Key’s foreign minister, Murray McCully, in an unsuccessful bid to appease a prominent Saudi investor who was upset by New Zealand’s ban on exporting live sheep by sea. The deal involved New Zealand sending significant amounts of cash and air-freighted sheep, but it largely ended in embarrassment – and did not deliver the FTA that New Zealand sought.

An acrimonious intra-Gulf split in the years that followed – which saw Qatar isolated by several GCC members – subsequently ruled out any further progress on the deal from the Gulf side. But those divisions were largely resolved last year.

Fast forward to New Zealand’s Labour government in 2022, and O’Connor’s trip was surprisingly successful. It resulted in FTA negotiations between New Zealand and the GCC being restarted.

But despite this success, New Zealand made surprisingly little fanfare of O’Connor’s successful foray into the Gulf. While the trip was announced as part of wider international travel plans, no press release on the outcome was issued after the minister’s trip. O’Connor’s report to Cabinet on the travel is also yet to be publicly released.

To be fair, O’Connor did tweet about his visit to Riyadh – calling it ‘productive’ – and he also announced the ‘reengagement with the Gulf Cooperation Council on an FTA’ in another tweet in April.

The minister also touched on the talks with the GCC in a speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs (NZIIA) in May. In that address, O’Connor said New Zealand would focus on ‘goods market access’ in the negotiations, but would also be seeking ‘to update and modernise the agreement’ in other areas such as labour and environmental standards.

Arab media provide some further detail about O’Connor’s movements on his March trip.

A report by the Bahrain News Agency from March 8 said a meeting between O’Connor and GCC Secretary General Dr. Nayef Falah Al Hajraf ‘discussed the means to enhance economic and investment relations between the GCC countries and New Zealand’. A few days later, the same outlet reported that New Zealand had signed a ‘strategic food security partnership’ with the UAE.

The Arabic-language Al-Ain news website even produced an elaborate infographic about the food security deal and O’Connor’s visit.

Of course, the Government may have decided that a low-key approach to the talks with the GCC best serves New Zealand’s interests, especially given the difficulties faced in the past.

But another reason for keeping a low profile domestically almost certainly relates to the sensitivities over the involvement of Saudi Arabia, the most populous country in the GCC by far and its driving force.

In addition to New Zealand’s own concerns over the Khashoggi killing in 2018, a political firestorm erupted in early 2021 when it was revealed that Air New Zealand – of which the NZ Government owns 51 per cent – had been repairing engines for the Saudi military, despite Riyadh playing a leading role in the war in Yemen.

At the time, Jacinda Ardern called the arrangement ‘completely wrong’ and said it did not ‘pass New Zealand’s sniff test’. Air New Zealand summarily terminated the arrangement and returned the remaining parts with the repairs incomplete.

Eighteen months later, the GCC seems willing to turn the page and reconsider a trade deal with New Zealand.

But just as MBS expected Joe Biden to meet him in exchange for Saudi Arabia pumping more oil, he will probably expect Jacinda Ardern to personally visit the Middle East to seal any free trade deal with the GCC.

Of course, New Zealand has considerable experience in balancing human rights and trade issues from its careful handling of the China relationship.

And while Joe Biden has received heavy criticism for his trip, the visit also gave the US president an opportunity to raise the killing of Jamal Khashoggi directly with MBS – and to call the murder ‘outrageous’ while Biden was on Saudi soil.

Will Jacinda Ardern now follow Joe Biden’s lead – and give MBS a fist-bump of her own?

Other items of interest and importance today

NEW BOOK ON THE NATIONAL PARTY
Andrea Vance (Stuff): Blue Blood: how the National Party went to war with itself
Andrea Vance (Stuff): The final hours of the last National Government – and the coronation of Jacinda Ardern as NZ’s youngest PM
Steve Braunias (Newsroom): National’s autopsy report
Toby Manhire (Spinoff): ‘We didn’t know how nasty it got’: Andrea Vance on National’s long nightmare
Kelly Dennett (Stuff): Blue Blood author Andrea Vance on getting the inside story of National’s war with itself

COST OF LIVING AND INFLATION
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Grant Robertson extends fuel tax cut to January, with fuel relief now costing $1b
Rachel Sadler and Leighton Heikell (Newshub): Cost of living: Government placing ‘bandaid upon bandaid’ rather than having plan to address inflation – National’s Nicola Willis
Rosie Gordon (RNZ): Fuel tax cut: Road relief measures ‘not targeted to help those who need it most’
Carmen Hall (Stuff): Struggling families will bear brunt if stagflation hits

HEALTH
Claire Trevett (Herald): Health crisis or not? Andrew Little has the worst job in politics now (paywalled)
Lana Hart (Stuff): Arguing about whether it’s a ‘crisis’ isn’t helping the health situation
Rob Campbell (Newsroom): Band-aids for health staffing crisis are only a short-term patch, says new health boss
Brendon McMahon (Local Democracy reporting): Health minister’s leadership ‘sadly lacking’ – former Coast DHB deputy
RNZ: ‘We see the data, we see the challenges’ – Little defends health system
Jem Traylen (BusinessDesk): It’s time govt got out of the corner on migrant nurses (paywalled)
Hannah Martin (Stuff): Just two weeks’ supply of ‘important’ anti-anxiety medication left in NZ

COVID
Luke Malpass (Stuff): Covid-19 is surging big time but the Government is right to not panic
Tony Blakely and Michael Baker (The Conversation): How are Australia and NZ managing the rising Covid winter wave – and is either getting it right?
Jaime Lyth (Herald): Kelvin Davis and top judges cop flak from health expert after going maskless at indoor event (paywalled)
Tess McClure (Guardian): New Zealand seeks to repeat world-beating Covid response in face of surging cases
Tamara Poi-Ngawhika (Herald): Retail expert says mask use has ‘dropped off a cliff’
Herald: Editorial: Eyes wide shut and bare-faced exposure to Omicron (paywalled)
Herald: Editorial: The persistent presence of Covid-19 (paywalled)
Jamie Morton (Herald): NZ’s Covid future: Michael Baker answers our five biggest questions

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Jayden Holmes (Today FM): Prime Minister could travel to Saudi Arabia if trade deal is revisited
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Jacinda Ardern finally gets lucky break on overseas trips (paywalled)
Christine Rovoi (Stuff): Māori vulnerable to US-China fallout in the Pacific, warns Shane Jones
Sam Sachdeva (Newsroom): NZ cannot afford to be comfortable in the Pacific
Christine Rovoi (Stuff): Leaders push for unity in the midst of a Pacific rift
1News: Nanaia Mahuta sounds alarm on Pacific debt
Mike Smith (The Standard): Militarising the Pacific

ECONOMY, EMPLOYMENT AND MIGRATION
Damien Grant (Stuff): We’re following in Sri Lanka’s footsteps
Brooke van Velden (Herald): We need to stop the Kiwi brain drain
Mike Munro (Herald): The workers are heading our way (paywalled)

PARLIAMENT AND ELECTIONS
Andrea Vance (Stuff): Could we take the politics out of politics, and hand it back to the people?
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): 2023 Election: Who will NZ fear most? A National/ACT Government or a Labour/Green/Māori Party Government?
Phil Smith (RNZ): Parliament’s cooperative team captains
Steve Braunias (Herald): The secret diary of David Seymour (paywalled)

NATIONAL PARTY
Thomas Manch (Stuff): Christopher Luxon’s support fell amid US abortion debate, poll suggests
Fran O’Sullivan (Herald): Christopher Luxon’s wrong call – putting NZ business down (paywalled)
Richard Harman: Willis begins to redefine National (paywalled)
Andrew Gunn (Stuff): Explaining is losing with Christopher Luxon
Hayden Munro (Herald): Christopher Luxon’s foot in mouth business faux pas (paywalled)

GOVERNMENT
Rachel Smalley (Today FM): Now is the time for true leadership Prime Minister
Max Rashbrooke (Stuff): Here’s how Labour could outflank Luxon on tax
Steve Braunias (Herald): The rise of anti-Jacinda Ardern ferals, fake news and its advocates (paywalled)
1News: Mahuta hits back at ‘toxic trolling’ after nepotism accusations

LEO MOLLOY CAMPAIGN FOR AUCKLAND MAYORALTY
Jack Tame (Herald): Leo Molloy v Guy Williams backlash – TV interview was comedy but showed Auckland mayoral candidate as he is
Neil Reid (Herald): Rival Wayne Brown calls on Leo Molloy to stand aside from Auckland mayoral race over TV appearance
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): Jack Tame vs Leo Molloy vs Guy Williams vs Woke Twitter
Madeleine Chapman (Spinoff): What was Guy Williams trying to do?

LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND ELECTIONS
Simon Wilson (Herald): Auckland mayoralty: Is it the Efeso Collins and Leo Molloy show – or still too early to say (paywalled)
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): Latest Auckland mayoralty poll: Winners, losers & predictions
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk): Councils are notoriously stupid and unaccountable
Brent Edwards (NBR): Bigger not necessarily better for local government (paywalled)
Tamati Tiananga (Māori TV): Mahuta says vote to change entrenched racism
Anthony Doesburg (Newsroom): Sage advice for Dunedin’s Green mayor
Erin Gourley (Stuff): Council candidates warned Wellington may need to sell commercial assets
Stephen Ward (Stuff): How to get the ‘local voice’? Community committee trial recommended for Hamilton
Bill Hickman (Stuff): Wellington mayor Andy Foster shares hope for ‘transformation’ of the capital
Stephen Ward (Stuff): Hamilton faces ‘staggering’ array of issues in an ‘extraordinary’ time, CEO warns
Mike Mather (Stuff): Signs of a testy campaign? Hamilton City Council candidates ‘jumping the gun’ on election hoardings
Megan Woods (Herald): Christchurch is already a super city – does it need to become a ‘Super-City’? (paywalled)

CHRISTCHURCH STADIUM
RNZ: Questions raised on who will fund new Te Kaha stadium in Christchurch
Anna Leask (Herald): Christchurch stadium decision – council votes 13-3 in favour of new arena
Steven Walton and Amber Allott (Stuff): ‘Absolutely stoked’: Christchurch to spend $683 million on stadium, following 13-3 vote
Hamish Clark (Herald): Party time in Christchurch – Thank goodness the Stadium will be built (paywalled)
David Williams (Newsroom): Is the new stadium Christchurch’s monorail?
David Williams (Newsroom): In defence of Christchurch’s dissenting three
John Minto (Daily Blog): “Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor”

EDUCATION
Janet Wilson (Stuff): Polytech merger’s ills a harbinger for Government’s other reforms
David Farrar: The mega polytech mega meltdown
Dubby Henry (Herald): Poverty, family background don’t explain Māori suspension, expulsion rates – study (paywalled)

SUPERMARKET REGULATION
Sarah Robson (RNZ): Shopping for change: Busting the supermarket duopoly
Gerhard Uys (Stuff): Supermarket code ‘will not be a silver bullet for vegetable growers’
Martyn Bradbury (Waatea News): Supermarket Duopoly whitewash a missed opportunity for Co-governance
John Anthony (Stuff): Supermarket price promotions a direct response to falling public trust, experts say

MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION
Nicky Hager (Newsroom): Investigative journalism in times of trouble
Duncan Greive (Spinoff): How social media abandoned news – and newsletters became existentially important to The Spinoff
Tim Murphy (Newsroom): Today FM hopes for audiences tomorrow
Herald: Newstalk ZB claims top radio ratings spot for 14th year running
Chris Schulz (Spinoff): Too many jobs, not enough reporters: ‘It is a very good time to be a journalist’
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): The future for Morning Report, without Susie Ferguson
David Skipwith (Stuff): Susie Ferguson will leave Morning Report for new role as senior RNZ presenter and journalist
Colin Peacock (RNZ): The worst of times?
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): NZ on Air just gave Spinoff $160 000 to cover the local elections

CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENT
Hamish Cardwell (RNZ): Climate change poll: Tolerance dropping for those who build in harm’s way
Marc Daalder (Newsroom): Sticks, not carrots, to cut farm emissions – Climate Commission
Alex Zhou (Stuff): Why housing is the elephant-sized hole in our climate plan
Katarina Williams (Stuff): Public overwhelmingly expects more extreme flooding events, more often, poll shows

TRANSPORT
Justin Wong (Stuff): Porirua, Kāpiti Coast councils support making public transport free
Bernard Orsman (Herald): Auditor-General says it will cost $5.5 billion to enable Auckland’s City Rail Link to open (paywalled)
Andrew Barnes (Herald): A message to Auckland Transport: On your bike — or bus or feet (paywalled)

JUSTICE, LAW AND ORDER
Sophie Cornish (Stuff): Police to spend $2 million over two years to investigate bias and racism
Deena Coster (Stuff): Police, iwi Māori justice initiative fueled by a drive to ‘decriminalise’
Deena Coster (Stuff): Let’s tip the justice scales in favour of people

THREE WATERS
Russell Palmer (RNZ): Three waters IT system project could top $500m, warns National
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Labour asks supporters to back Three Waters in Parliament
Sheryl Mai (Herald): Decision does not compromise our stand on Three Waters reform
Dave Armstrong (Stuff): Fluoride foul-up makes 3 Waters more attractive
Toni McDonald (ODT): Council clear Three Waters process flawed
Georgina Campbell (Herald): Regulator didn’t raise concerns over Wellington fluoride failure

ABORTION
Graham Adams (The Platform): The great abortion beat-up
Caroline Williams (Stuff): Hundreds rally for abortion rights in Auckland after Roe v Wade overturned
Arena Williams; Stuart Smith (Stuff): How easily could the right for an abortion be removed in New Zealand?
Deborah Coddington (Stuff): Abortion is not compulsory, opponents turn a blind eye to facts
Karl du Fresne: Abortion in New Zealand: the statistics

RODEOS
Lynn Charlton (Spinoff): What’s wrong with rodeos?
Virginia Fallon (Stuff): Rodeo is blatant animal abuse and New Zealand must ban it
Newstalk: To rodeo or not to rodeo: Are the rodeo animals safe?
Kate Nicol-Williams (1News): Rodeo legal challenge heard in High Court
Hazel Osborne (Herald): Legality of rodeo challenged in the High Court at Wellington

New Zealand and the European Union have struck an historic free trade deal, “unlocking access to one of the world’s biggest and most lucrative markets” after four years of tough negotiating.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and President of the European Union Ursula von der Leyen unveiled the details in Brussels, but it was touch and go as to whether a good enough deal could be agreed.

The negotiations went right to the limit, with Ardern and Trade Minister Damien O’Connor involved in the last phase of the talks, just hours before the official announcement was made.

The agreement — about 14 years in the making — means New Zealand views it as “commercially meaningful” and as worth putting pen to paper.

Ardern said it was a “strategically important and economically beneficial deal that comes at a crucial time in our export led covid-19 recovery”, covering 27 EU member states.

“It delivers tangible gains for exporters into a restrictive agricultural market. It cuts costs and red tape for exporters and opens up new high value market opportunities and increases our economic resilience through diversifying the markets that we can more freely export into,” she said.

By 2035, the value of New Zealand exports to the EU will increase by $1.8 billion a year, which Ardern said was more lucrative than the benefits gained from New Zealand’s recent deal with the United Kingdom.

Eventually duty free
Eventually, 97 percent of New Zealand’s current exports to the EU will be duty-free, and more than 91 percent of tariffs will be removed the day the FTA comes into effect.

There will be immediate tariff elimination for all kiwifruit, wine, onions, apples, mānuka honey and manufactured goods, as well as almost all fish and seafood, and other horticultural products. It will also become easier for a range of service providers to access the EU, including education.

Meat and dairy have always been a tough sell due to the protected European market; once fully implemented this deal will deliver new quota opportunities worth over $600 million in annual export earnings, with an eight-fold increase to the amount of beef able to be sold into Europe. Duty free access for sheep meat has been expanded by 38,000 tonnes each year.

Red meat and dairy will get up to $120 million worth of new annual export revenue on day one of the deal, with estimates of more than $600 million within seven years.

Quotas have been established for butter, cheese, milk powders and protein whey.

The vast bulk of dairy tariffs will be eliminated within seven years, however the current system is a bit trickier. New Zealand had World Trade Organisation quotas for butter and cheese, but exporters couldn’t make use of them as the “in-tariff rates” were so high it was not economic to make use of them.

For example, butter has a 46,000 tonne annual quota, but the tariff rate was 38 percent.

Cheese break through
Under the new deal, of that quota, 36,000 tonnes will have a 5 percent tariff over seven years — once fully in force that is a $258 million benefit each year.

There has been a stop on New Zealand cheese exports to the EU for the last five years, for the same reason.

But under the FTA there will be immediate access through a tariff-free, annual quota of 31,000 tonnes — worth about $187 million each year to the local industry.

Another particular element of the deal is “geographical indications”; names of products that come with a strong connection to a specific area and ones the EU wants protected from use by anyone outside of that region.

For the cheese makers and the cheese lovers — New Zealand will be able to keep using the names gouda, mozzarella, haloumi, brie and camembert.

Feta, beloved to Greece, will be off the table though and producers here will have to find another name in nine years’ time.

Cheese makers will be able to keep using the name “gruyere”, as long as they had been doing so five years before the deal comes into effect; the same with “parmesan”.

Medicines carve out
There has been a carve out for New Zealand medicines and Pharmac, as patent requirements sought by the EU would have made medicines here more expensive by hundreds of millions of dollars a year — New Zealand refused and that is not part of the deal, the only country in the OECD to have that exemption.

Ardern described the deal as “high quality, inclusive and ambitious”, containing “ground-breaking commitments on environment, labour rights and gender equality as foundational parts of a trade and sustainable development chapter”.

“I am pleased that this FTA also includes a dedicated chapter on Māori Trade and Economic Cooperation,” she said.

While Ardern was drumming up support with European leaders at the NATO Summit in Madrid, Trade Minister Damien O’Connor spent the past week in Brussels nailing down the final details.

He said the deal provided “access for products that were previously locked out in the historically difficult to access European market”.

“This agreement delivers on what has been a long-standing objective of successive New Zealand governments — an FTA with the European Union, which will help accelerate New Zealand’s economic recovery at a time of global disruption,” O’Connor said.

‘Solid’ trade agreement
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said it was a “modern and solid” trade agreement.

“With this agreement, we should be able to increase trade between the two of us by 30 percent — that’s a big step”, she said at the media briefing with Ardern.

“Our farmers on both sides will benefit and they will benefit way beyond tariff cuts because we will work together on sustainable food systems.”

The EU is New Zealand’s third largest trading partner.

On the EU side, she said it meant European investment could grow by about 80 percent, a large number of food products geographical indications have been protected, and nearly all tariffs on exports to New Zealand have been eliminated.

It is a different kind of agreement, covering modern digital rules, and “several firsts”, said von der Leyen, for example, “sanctionable commitments” to the Paris Climate Agreement.

“This is the very first time that we take such commitments in a trade deal… and it contains, again, for the first time provisions on fossil fuels,” she said.

“And we show the same ambition on core international labor standards and on gender equality, to advance women’s economic empowerment.

“So this agreement will bring major benefits to our economies, but also to our societies.”

New Zealand and the EU have also signed an agreement for closer co-operation between law enforcement agencies, allowing greater information sharing and collaboration to help disrupt and respond to transnational organised crime, drug trafficking, money laundering, child sexual exploitation, cybercrime, violent extremism, and terrorism.

‘Deeply disappointed’ – Meat Industry Association
Red meat exporters are “extremely disappointed and concerned” with what they describe as a “poor quality” deal struck with the European Union, representing a “missed opportunity” for farmers.

The Meat Industry Association said the deal agreed will see only a “small quota” for New Zealand beef into the EU — 10,000 tonnes into a market that consumes 6.5 million tonnes of beef annually — “far less than the red meat sector’s expectations”, and one that continues to put them at disadvantage in a large market.

“We are extremely disappointed that this agreement does not deliver commercially meaningful access for our exporters, in particular for beef,” said chief executive Sirma Karapeeva of the Industry Association.

“We have been clear from the outset that what we need from an EU-NZ Free Trade Agreement is market access that allows for future growth and opportunity.

“Unfortunately, this outcome maintains small quotas that will continue to constrain our companies’ ability to export to the EU,” she said. “This agreement is not consistent with our expectations and the promise for an ambitious, high quality trade deal.”

Diversification was even more important with the increasing volatility in global markets and a high quality deal was “critical” to helping exporters broaden their access to other markets, said Karapeeva.

“This is a missed opportunity for farmers, exporters and New Zealanders,” she said.

“It will mean our sector will not be able to capture the maximum value for our products, depriving the New Zealand economy of much-needed export revenue at a time when the country is relying on the primary sector to deliver when it matters most.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The meat industry is waiting with bated breath to find out if there is any truth that New Zealand meat is linked to a coolstore in China where covid-19 has been found on packaging.

Reuters has reported the virus was found on beef and tripe products in a storage facility containing shipments from Argentina, Brazil and “essentially covid-free” New Zealand.

The virus was apparently found on more than 3500 products in the eastern Chinese city of Jinan, in Shandong province.

Apart from saying where the products originated, Chinese authorities have not named the companies that shipped them.

New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it had not been informed officially by Chinese authorities, and officials were trying to find the origin and veracity of the media reports.

In the post-cabinet briefing this afternoon, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the government was advised yesterday that there had been positive covid-19 tests from packaging of beef from Argentina.

They were also advised that there were some New Zealand products stored in the same coolstore where the positive tests were returned.

Government seeks more information
Unlike some media reports, they were not advised that any New Zealand products had tested positive. The government was seeking more information on the testing.

“I want to get to the bottom of this … this is incredibly important to New Zealand. We are confident, of course, that our products do not and are not exported with signs of covid on them given our status as essentially being covid-free,” Ardern said.

Minister of Trade Damien O’Connor said there was nothing to suggest the virus originated in New Zealand.

“We have been aware of the Chinese investigating the possibility of covid spreading through frozen goods. It’s a very, very slim possibility. Genetic material can be found on the goods, we know that, but the risk of it spreading infection is very, very low.”

He said it was a timely reminder to exporters about the risks.

“If they have people who are sick, working anywhere in New Zealand even though we have no community transmission, they should take all precautions and make sure people don’t come to work.”

The Meat Industry Association said they were essentially in a holding pattern awaiting more information from China, with chief executive Sirma Karapeeva saying the science suggested transmission of the virus on frozen products was negligible.

‘No evidence’ of NZ implication
“We haven’t had any feedback from our members that suggests that their product has been caught up in this and they should know, they’ve got really close links with their importers in China. So I tend to agree with the minister, it’s not clear or seen any evidence to suggest any New Zealand product has been implicated.”

She said it proved China was serious about the risks of covid getting back in.

“They have stepped up their product testing on imports. They are testing all products as they come through the border, so clearly they are taking this very seriously and in a way it’s positive to see that they are focused on managing Covid within their own borders.”

Karapeeva advised people to keep calm and carry on.

“Now is not the time to panic, we have very good systems in place for food safety as well as for covid management and we are confident those systems are robust in managing transmission within New Zealand, so as long as companies follow the rules I think they should be fine.”

AgriHQ senior sheep and beef analyst Mel Croad said meat exports to China were heading into the busiest period of the year so any hiccup was a worry.

”From here until about March-April, our export volumes are ramping up every month just reflecting those higher processing volumes back here. It’s crucial that we have got a good flow into our export markets.”

The Ministry of Primary Industry’s assessment remains that the risk of covid-19 transmission by food or food packaging is negligible.

The Meat Industry Association said it was unfortunate New Zealand products seemed to be implicated in something with very little or no evidence.

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz