The paper quoted Manutuke apple grower Wayne Hall saying: “This variety is stunning provided it is harvested at optimum maturity. The season in Gisborne is about seven to 10 days later than last year.”

Hall who is also the operations manager for Wi Pere Trust Citrus said normally picking starts in late January. “We have a reliable team of experienced staff who have done the harvesting for the last six years. They are skilled at select picking for colour and maturity.”

In early December white reflective mulch was laid under the trees to help advance maturity and give a more even fruit colour.

“It increases the amount of sunlight intercepted by the trees and we can pick the lower fruit earlier.”

The few cooler nights in late January have also helped fruit colour.

Trees planted in 2004 were grafted on M26 a semi- dwarfing rootstock, which is helping to contain the tree vigour and give the fruit good exposure to light.

The rain in December and January had helped the size but the intense heat — often four to five degrees hotter in parts of the orchard, compared to the daily recorded high — had left about 2 to 3 percent of the fruit with severe sun burn, said Hall.

“Overall we have had an excellent growing season for apples and the crop is particularly clean which should give good results at the packhouse. We hope to pick about 100 tonnes off the two hectare block.”

Kaiaponi Farms general manager Scott Wilson said the first of the new seasons apples were packed this week and fruit is being delivered to the markets on a daily basis.

“There is a strong demand for the fruit. The cool nights and warm sunny days have produced both good colour and great eating fruit.”

Chief executive for Pipfruit NZ Peter Bevan said the estimate total crop for 2012 is 16.6 million cartons which is unusually similar to last season, biennial bearing normally results in significant production swings from year to year.

He said while Royal Gala and Braeburn varieties still make up 55 percent of the expected volume, Jazz is expected to top two million cartons for the first time and will now make up 12 percent of the volume. Other large contributors are Fuji which makes up 1.7 million cartons, the Pacific series 1.1 million and Pink Lady, 830,000 cartons.

Braeburn production has now shrunk by 24 percent to 3.3 million, the lowest production in 20 years as growers remove this uneconomic variety.

Bevan said while the European Union, Asia and the Middle East are the largest markets for NZ apples, there are 10 pack houses expected to be able to pass the stringent audits required to supply the Australian market this year.
Source: Gisborn Herald

Panama Canal Authority vice president Rodolfo Sabonge said the new 13,200-TEUer will be 366 metres long, drawing 15.5 metres move at 23.5 knots with a deadweight of 143,000 tons.

When the Panama expansion was first laid out, the expectation was to double the capacity, from 4,500-TEU to 9,000 TEU. Expectations grew to 12,000 TEU because of opportunities discovered in the course of dredging and new ship designs.

Panama traffic volumes are expected to rise from last year’s 6.6 million TEU to 8.4 million TEU in 2015. Seventy per cent of the cargo transiting the canal is either destined for or originates in the US. Bulk cargo is likely to witness the biggest growth though container traffic will be the main business, said the journal.

The World Shipping Council’s Anne Kappel said that port productivity will be the key to handling long-term container growth.

Transshipment will become even more important in services to the east coast, said Carlos Urriolo, head of Manzanilla port, noting that 86 per cent of the volume of traffic through the canal in 2011 involved transshipment.

The Port of Kingston in Jamaica, the only harbour in the region with a draft of 17 metres, will become more important and Freeport in the Bahamas with 14 metres will also be a big transshipment contender too.
Source: Shipping Gazette

Nosh Food Market says margins are too high and it hopes the lowered price can continue indefinitely if competitors and other parties come on board.

A recent Herald survey found that the price of milk was higher in New Zealand than in Australia, the United States and Britain – despite some studies showing we have the lowest cost of production.

Nosh chief executive Clinton Beuvink said: “If a consumer is not happy about lamb, you can buy chicken. But if you’re not happy about milk, you’re stuck. That’s why there’s a moral case.

“Nosh isn’t unique. There are a lot of other similar retailers that are more attractive than the supermarkets – at small dairies, even petrol stations, you can get a discount for milk.

“If you live somewhere far away, don’t drive across to see me – find your local dairy that’s discounting and support them, and they’ll be able to discount further.”

Milk was a money maker for supermarkets – with a profitability of about 30 per cent versus just 10 per cent for soft drinks, Beuvink said.

“I really want to test the moral fibre of the big supermarkets, that this isn’t where we should be making money. I want people to embrace the dairies because they’re the ones that need our support.

“Saudi Arabia is an efficient producer of petrol, and they sell petrol there for $1 a US gallon, whereas everyone else in the world pays $4.

“They’re providing a local benefit for something they produce.

“Milk is our white oil. I think it will be good to make it benefit New Zealanders. New Zealand [farmers] are really good-quality producers of milk; we should be leading the charge to make it affordable for Kiwis.”

Nosh will make a loss on each two-litre bottle of milk selling at $2, and will review pricing at the end of the month.

“If there are a number of interested parties to work on getting it at that price, it could be sustainable, but everyone would have to contribute,” Beuvink said.

He would be interested to see how the big supermarkets react.

“I would like to hope that this is a bit of a good campaign, and it’s all about providing good products to New Zealanders at a good price.

“If this catches the imagination, there could be a good-news story that keeps going for a while with other people coming to the party.”

The idea is modelled on a similar campaign last year by Australian supermarket chain Coles. After it dropped its price to $1 a litre, competitors followed, though with protests that the pricing was hurting farmers and the Government should step in.

More at NZ Herald

The Harvard dropout, who launched the social networking phenomenon from his dorm room, will control 56.9 per cent of the voting shares in a company expected to be valued at up to USD$100 billion when it goes public.

Facebook says it has 845 million active monthly users. Wednesday’s long-awaited filing kicks off a process that will culminate in Silicon Valley’s biggest coming-out party since the heyday of the dotcom boom and bust. In its filing Facebook says it is seeking to raise $5 billion, but that is a figure used to calculate registration fees among others and analysts estimate it could tap investors for $10 billion.
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That would value the company at $100 billion, dwarfing storied tech giants such as Hewlett Packard Co, while validating the explosive growth worldwide of social media as communication and entertainment. Zuckerberg’s economic control of about 28 per cent of the shares would be worth $28 billion at a $100 billion valuation, ranking him as the fourth-richest American.

The 27-year-old’s ownership position means Facebook, a company dissected in 2010′s Oscar-winning The Social Network, will not need to appoint a majority of independent directors or set up board committees to oversee compensation and other matters.

The company’s ownership structure and bylaws go against shareholder-friendly corporate governance practices put in place in the United States after years of investor activism. As Facebook states in its prospectus, Zuckerberg will “control all matters submitted to stockholders for vote, as well as the overall management and direction of our company.”

Zuckerberg struck deals with several Facebook investors that granted him voting rights over their shares in all or most situations. Those included Yuri Milner’s DST Global, venture capital firm The Founders Fund, and entities affiliated with Technology Crossover Ventures, the IPO filing shows.

Google Inc’s Sergey Brin and Larry Page retained control of the search giant through similar arrangements and the Sulzbergers did much the same at the New York Times.

“Zuckerberg, at the time, probably had his choice of investors,” said Steven Kaplan, a professor at University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, who researches venture capital and corporate governance. “He basically had the ability to say ‘my way or the highway.’”

“The downside of doing this is that the value of Facebook may be slightly lower than it would be if he were not retaining control.” Facebook could make its market debut in the middle of the year based on the usual timetable of IPOs. Its IPO prospectus shows that Facebook generated $3.71 billion in revenue and made $1 billion in net profit last year, up 65 pe rcent from the $606 million it made in 2010.

“We often talk about inventions like the printing press and the television,” Zuckerberg said in a letter accompanying the documents. “Today, our society has reached another tipping point.” “The scale of the technology and infrastructure that must be built is unprecedented.”

Facebook appointed Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan as its lead underwriters. Other bookrunners include Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital and Allen and Co. Zuckerberg agreed to cut his compensation from $1.48 million last year to $1 effective January 1, 2013, following the example of Apple founder Steve Jobs.

Facebook’s growing popularity has pressured entrenched Internet companies from Yahoo to Google Inc. In 2011, the social network overtook Yahoo to become the top provider of online display ads in the United States by revenue, industry research firm eMarketer says.

A $10 billion IPO would be the fourth-largest in US history after Visa Inc, General Motors, and AT&T Wireless, Thomson Reuters data shows.

The $5 billion figure in Wednesday’s prospectus was an initial, reference figure — a basis for registration fees, among other things — and could change based on investor demand. The prospectus said 85 per cent of Facebook’s 2011 revenue was derived from advertising.

Social-gaming company Zynga , creator of Farmville, accounted for 12 percent of Facebook’s revenue last year. The IPO will dwarf any recent debuts of Internet companies, such as Zynga, LinkedIn Corp, Groupon Inc and Pandora Media Inc. Their IPOs had mixed receptions.

The last debut, from Zynga, closed 5 per cent below its IPO price during its first trading day in December. Google raised just shy of $2 billion in 2004, while Groupon last year tapped $700 million and Zynga $1 billion.

Facebook aims to be more attractive to potential large advertisers. It has improved its ad targeting capabilities as it collects user data through new features such as the Timeline, said George John, founder of Rocket Fuel, a digital marketing company. Advertising revenue increased 69 per cent in 2011 from 2010, and its average revenue per ad increased 18 per cent.

More at Gulf News

Named the ‘World’s Most Curious Bottle’, the smartphone application (app) is the next step in the Brancott Estate ‘Stay Curious’ campaign, letting wine lovers see where their curiosity will lead them by transforming a bottle of Brancott Estate into a portal for both entertainment and wine-focused education.

The company says all newly-packaged bottles in the Brancott Estate Classic still range feature a QR (quick response) code. Consumers are invited to download the ‘World’s Most Curious Bottle’ app on their smartphone. The free app is designed for Apple and Android smartphone platforms and can only be accessed from Apple and Android online app stores. Once downloaded, the app allows smartphones to interact directly with the Brancott Estate bottle.

Pernod Ricard New Zealand Managing Director Fabian Partigliani says that with a history founded in innovation in New Zealand, Brancott Estate is leading the way with the use of digital technology by allowing wine lovers to directly interact and engage with the brand via the app.

As Brancott Estate rolls out a contemporary new look across its entire wine range, it’s also releasing a new app bringing together the worlds of wine and entertainment via QR code.

After scanning a QR code on Brancott Estate still range bottles carrying the new packaging, consumers can then download the World’s Most Curious Bottle App and interact directly with the brand.

The app continues Brancott Estate’s Stay Curious campaign and the company says it’s a first for a New Zealand wine brand, offering 14 consumer experiences from virtual visits to Brancott Vineyard in Marlborough, tasting notes and food-matching information, and a fully interactive guide to Marlborough’s weather across the seasons.

The app works by prompting consumers to focus their smartphone’s camera on different parts of the new label to enable the various experiences. There are a number of triggers on the new labelling that the app will recognise, including the front label, QR code and back label map.

Pernod Ricard New Zealand managing director Fabian Partigliani said the campaign was a way to both entertain and inform consumers.

“While many apps offer just one experience, the World’s Most Curious App delivers consumers up to 14 unique experiences covering an array of wine-specific content and entertainment,” he said.

“As the winemakers who pioneered Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, staying curious is integral to the brand’s DNA and this is the next exciting evolution. We wanted to bring this curious experience to life in a tangible, engaging and interesting way. The World’s Most Curious Bottle has allowed us to capture the essence of Brancott Estate while enriching our consumers’ experience.”

Source: Brancott website

The report, “The Incredible Bulk: the Rise in Global Bulk Wine Trade” said bulk wine exports have nearly double over the past decade at the expense of bottled wine shipments, particularly among New World suppliers – with bulk format now approaching half of total export volumes.

It adds that the democratisation, commoditisation, innovation, and oversupply of wine, along with currency rates and changing trade flows, have changed both the conventional supply chain model and the distribution of value along that chain.

The report examines the dramatic growth in the bulk wine trade globally over the past two decades, and implications for wine suppliers as the segment continues to grow.

Rabobank says the challenging retail environment, a decade of oversupply, and other factors have constrained supplier pricing power and access to distribution in key import markets.

Among popular premium wines, the convergence in New World wine quality has sharpened the focus on suppliers’ cost competitiveness.

Besides grape production costs, import duties and relative exchange rates are key competitive determinants, with exchange rate fluctuations most detrimental to Australian suppliers and most beneficial to U.S. suppliers.

Cost savings are the overriding driver of shipping wine in bulk, stripping US$140 million in transport, duty, packaging and associated costs from supply chains of New World producers.

The shift in trade to bulk shipments equates to well over US$1 billion generated in destination markets vs. at the production source.

Rabobank forecasts that bulk wine shipments will grow further, despite tightened global supply, as suppliers continue to seek low cost supply chain and distribution solutions.

It notes that “suppliers who cannot compete on a commodity product level, due to high currency rates or cost structures, will need to emphasize product innovation and brand differentiation in order to survive.”

Rabobank is a global financial services leader providing wholesale and retail banking for the food and agricultural industry, asset and investment management, leasing, real estate services, and renewable energy project financing.

Source PR News Wire

“Monsanto considers that favorable conditions for the sale of the MON810 in France in 2012 and beyond are not in place,” the company said in a statement, adding that it had told the French authorities about its intentions.

The French government said earlier this month it would uphold its ban on the insect-resistant strain of maize, despite the court’s decision to annul the ban after finding that it had not produced enough evidence that Monsanto’s MON810 posed a significant risk to health or the environment.

The farm ministry said France would reintroduce its moratorium on MON810 maize (corn) before spring sowings start.

Monsanto’s statement follows an action by anti-GMO activists in one of its plants in southwestern France on Tuesday. They said Monsanto was about to sell MON810 to French farmers ahead of sowings whereas the U.S. firm said GMO seeds stored at some of its French plants were aimed at export markets.

Genetically modified organism (GMO) crops are widely used in countries such as the United States and Brazil but consumers in France, the EU’s largest grain producer, are among the staunchest biotech skeptics.

Monsanto, which stressed that it had not sold nor tested MON810 in France since 2008, said that as long as the political climate remained unfavorable it would limit its offer to non-GMO seeds.

Source: Reuters

The GRI will apply to all shipments from east Asia (excluding Japan) to all North Europe and Mediterranean (excluding south and west Africa) destinations.

Hapag-Lloyd’s east Asia coverage includes Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, mainland China, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Brunei, Vladivostok and Vostochny.

And its north Europe coverage comprises north west European continent, the UK, Scandinavia, Baltic and European ports of Russia, while Mediterranean services cover the west and east Mediterranean, Black Sea and north Africa.

Source: Shipping Gazette

If Woolworths follows suit, fresh produce will become the latest product to be heavily discounted by the supermarket giants, following price cuts to milk, bread, toilet paper and washing powder by both companies in the past year.

The peak body representing vegetable growers, AusVeg, said the announcement was ”concerning” because, while an oversupply of produce this season meant some growers would benefit in the short term, it was unclear the effect the price reduction would have on the industry over time.

The general manager for fresh produce at Coles, Greg Davis, said the company had worked closely with growers to transform their fresh fruit and vegetable prices, investing in new growing techniques, quality control, in-store displays and now lower prices for customers.

A spokesman for the company, Jon Church, said it had invested millions in the campaign but had worked with suppliers on an agreed price.

A spokesman from AusVeg, William Churchill, said the push by the main retailers for market share would place pressure on other growers who did not supply Coles, as competitors tried to replicate the offer to their customers.

”We can see that the supermarket wars have well and truly arrived in the fresh produce industry and this fight will get savage,” Churchill said.

A spokeswoman for Woolworths, Claire Kimball, would not comment on whether it would follow suit, but said fruit and vegetables prices had been falling for the past year due to the volume of produce available.

Woolworths announces its second-quarter sales today. Goldman Sachs expects it to report lower growth in food and liquor sales compared with Coles, which reveals its sales on Thursday.

More at Sydney Morning Herald

Financial experts said the plan will not put the city in direct competition with Hong Kong, which is already the offshore yuan center. That’s because the two cities will offer different yuan-based products and services to different clients.

The plan, jointly published by the National Development and Reform Commission and the Shanghai Municipal Government on Monday, sets out the main objectives for Shanghai to become a financial center. Key to those objectives is to raise the annual volume of trade in Shanghai’s financial markets (excluding the foreign exchange market) to 1 quadrillion yuan (USD$158 trillion) by 2015.

In 2010, Shanghai’s financial markets (excluding the foreign exchange market) registered a trading volume of 386.2 trillion yuan, 10 times of that in 2005.

The plan says the daily mid-point price published by the central bank in the onshore yuan market would be the benchmark for both domestic and foreign yuan trading markets, and the government-backed Shanghai Interbank Offered Rate, or Shibor, would be the benchmark for yuan credit everywhere.

China will also encourage overseas companies to sell yuan-denominated shares in its domestic stock markets, but no timetable has yet been released.

Shanghai will also strive to increase its influence in global financial markets, especially the yuan-product market, according to the plan.

By 2015, Shanghai’s financial markets will witness a surge in the number of overseas investors and the growing global impact of its stock market’s main indexes and commodities futures prices.

The plan says Shanghai will enhance its financial services. By 2015, the financing volume of Shanghai’s financial markets will account for 22 percent of the city’s total financing volume, reaching 30 trillion yuan, double that of 2010.

Foreign-funded financial institutions will be encouraged to set up regional or global headquarters in Shanghai.

There were 1,049 financial institutions in Shanghai as of the end of 2010, 439 more than five years earlier.

As many as 320,000 financial industry professionals will be working in the city by 2015, including a large number of high-caliber talent, according to the plan.

In 2009, the State Council, China’s cabinet, announced that Shanghai would be built into an international financial hub.

The city boasts China’s biggest gold exchange, the headquarters of the country’s foreign-exchange trading system and a major commodities futures exchange.
The plan demonstrates the determination of the central government to make Shanghai an international financial center, and it is significant for the city’s development and reforms in a bid to thrive in the global financial market, according to the Shanghai Municipal Government.

“The plan indicates that China is determined to strengthen the financial function of Shanghai in a bid to compete with top global financial centers. The pricing of the renminbi will be decided mainly in the onshore rather than the offshore market, a message that has been conveyed since the NDRC announced it – the plan is a significant move,” said a precious metal trader with the Shanghai office of a London-based bank, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong and Shanghai should not be in a position of competition in the yuan business, said Professor Chong Tai Leung of the Chinese University Institute of Global Economics and Finance in Hong Kong.

“Hong Kong can still attract talented financial professionals and possesses a sophisticated legal system that offers arbitration services to global clients. In this sense, at this stage Shanghai still cannot compete with Hong Kong,” said Chong.

He stressed that in the initial stages of yuan internationalisation, Shanghai and Hong Kong should have more room for cooperation rather than competition in promoting the wider use of the currency in trade settlement and investment products.

Full story at ChinaDaily

Tata Starbucks, as their venture is known, hopes to capitalise on the rising aspirations – and fattening wallets – of many Indians, who are eager to partake of the global latte life.

“What we are seeing is an evolution in lifestyles,” said R. K. Krishnakumar, vice-chairman of Tata Global Beverages.

“In some ways the distinctions between the developed world and the developing world are blurring.”

He said the partners would initially invest 4 billion rupees ($98 million), with the first outlet to open in Mumbai or New Delhi by September.

Long known as a nation of tea drinkers – despite a rich tradition of coffee in the south – India has embraced coffee-house culture with a vengeance.

Last year India had 1600 cafes, up from just 700 in 2007, according to Technopak Advisors, which expects India’s US$170 million ($207 million) cafe market to grow 30 per cent a year, adding up to 2700 more outlets over the next five years.

“We’re going to move as fast as possible in opening as many stores as we can, so long as we are successful and so long as we are embraced by the Indian consumers,” said John Culver, president of Starbucks China and Asia Pacific.

Unusually, the stores will be co-branded “Starbucks Coffee: A Tata Alliance”. The companies will also develop a tea for the Indian market under the Tata Tazo brand.

Last January, Starbucks signed an agreement with Tata Coffee, a unit of Tata Global Beverages, to source and roast coffee beans in India.

The alliance with Tata could help ease one of the main burdens for retailers in India: the high cost of real estate. Krishnakumar said the joint venture would open outlets at properties owned by group companies, for example, at the Taj chain of luxury hotels.

Culver said the company would also look at opening outlets in shopping malls, office parks, universities, airports and train stations.

The alliance will also help Tata Global Beverages expand its international footprint. All coffee beans for the cafes in India will be sourced from Tata Coffee, which also hopes to ramp up exports to regional Starbucks outlets, Krishnakumar said. He said other Tata Beverage brands, such as Himalayan water, should also find their way into Starbucks outlets globally.

Starbucks currently operates more than 17,000 stores in 57 countries. Its India venture will face competition from existing players such as Cafe Coffee Day, which dominates the market.
More at NZ Herald

Fears of higher fuel costs rose this week after the International Monetary Fund warned that crude prices could surge 20-30 per cent if Iran halts oil supplies due to trade sanctions by the European Union and the US.

The cost of jet fuel has rarely fallen below $US120 a barrel in trading in Singapore over the past year.

But the strength of the Australian dollar against the greenback has provided a small buffer for Australian airlines.

Airlines have also used fuel surcharges as a way of combating the higher costs.

Jet fuel prices have more than tripled from an average of $US37 a barrel in 2004 to $US125 this year.

Qantas and Virgin also face increased costs from the federal government’s tax on carbon from July 1.

More at Sydney Morning Herald

Cevital owner and chief executive Issad Rebrab told Reuters that the privately held firm was also planning to increase its sugar refining capacity to 2.6 million tonnes a year, from 2 million tonnes, by the end of this year, and that it planned to open a refinery in Iraq.

Cevital had set itself the target of 1 million tonnes in annual exports several years back, but it has been frustrated by issues at Bejaia, the Mediterranean port east of the Algerian capital, which is home to its sugar refineries.

‘We have been exporting only 377,000 (tonnes) because of loading problems at Bejaia. We have now resolved those problems,’ Rebrab told Reuters on Saturday in an interview. ‘We aim to export around 1 million tonnes this year.’

‘The production capacity of our sugar refinery in Bejaia is currently 2 million tonnes per year. We plan to increase it to 2.6 million tonnes by the end of this year.’

Cevital imports most of its raw sugar from Brazil.

Rebrab said the company’s strategy was to focus on supplying sugar demand in Algeria, which has a population of over 35 million, and to export any surpluses.

‘We are exporting to around 28 countries including Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Syria, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Tunisia and Libya,’ he said.

‘We are also planning to set up a refinery in Iraq,’ Rebrab said, without giving further details on the project. – Reuters

Source: TradeArabia

According to the report, the Chinese Government-backed Shanghai Pengxin bid for the 16 Crafar farms has been approved – but under strict conditions including that the owners continue to be of good character, must invest $14 million in the properties and cannot become majority owners of milk processing facilities in New Zealand.

The decision has been slammed by the Crafar Farms Purchase Group, which said it was “wrong in law and, if not overturned by Judicial Review, sets up open season for any foreign buyers wanting New Zealand land”.

The group confirmed today that it would proceed with a Judicial Review launched earlier this week to try to stop the land from being sold offshore.

Group spokesman Alan McDonald said Shanghai Pengxin did not meet the criteria for overseas investment in New Zealand.

“By its own admission, Shanghai Pengxin Group does not have experience in dairying which is why they are trying to use the New Zealand Government’s own SOE, Landcorp, to put the veneer of a Kiwi face on this deal.

The fact that Shanghai Pengxin does not have this dairy farming experience makes them nothing more than a passive investor and on this basis we believe the application should have been rejected.” he said.

Group member Hardie Peni of Tiroa E and Te Hape B Trusts said his people were “dismayed but not deterred” by today’s ministerial decision.

“All public opinion polls have been overwhelmingly against the Shanghai Pengxin bid, with more than 80 per cent of New Zealanders against the sale of large parcels of productive farm land to overseas buyers,” he said.

“This is one issue where all Kiwis, Maori and Pakeha, urban and rural, stand together. Kiwis are right to be mightily concerned that this National/Maori Party Government has stood by and waved foreign buyers through our farm gates.”

Land Information Minister Maurice Williamson and Associate Finance Minister Jonathan Coleman today announced that they have accepted the recommendation of the Overseas investment Office (OIO) to accept the bid from Milk New Zealand, a subsidiary of Pengxin.

“It is clear that all criteria under sections 16 and 18 of the Overseas Investment Act 2005 have been met, therefore we accept the recommendation of the OIO to grant consent,” Mr Williamson said.

The offer is believed to be for $210 million.

Milk New Zealand intends to engage Landcorp Farming Limited (Landcorp) to manage the farms. The Overseas Investment Office considers that the involvement of Landcorp makes it more likely that the expected benefits will occur.

If an agreement between Milk New Zealand and Landcorp cannot be reached, Milk New Zealand will have to sell the properties.

More at the NZ Herald

The global container fleet is now cruising near record-low speeds after slowing 11 percent from August when the freight rate market collapsed, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and Lloyd’s Register. Drewry Shipping Consultants Ltd. estimates some of the smallest shipping lines will run out of cash in the second half of this year as the industry fails to adjust to overcapacity that’s allowing customers to push down rates.

“Container lines have already exhausted most of the tricks for absorbing capacity,” said Bjorn Vang Jensen, a Singapore- based vice president at Electrolux AB who oversees about 150,000 shipments a year. “Some of these container ships are now so slow that they’re close to the speeds of the old sailing ships. The clippers might actually have been faster.”

With options running out, investors in container-line stocks should brace themselves for losses. Still, shares in Copenhagen-based A.P Moeller-Maersk A/S, the world’s biggest container line, may fall less than smaller competitors this year because its bigger ships are more cost-efficient, said Rikard Vabo, an analyst at Fearnley Fonds ASA in Oslo.

Slow-steaming, pioneered by A.P. Moeller-Maersk’s container unit, Maersk Line, helps carriers cut costs when times are tough. By sailing at lower speeds, ships need less fuel and can offset capacity stresses by using more vessels to make up for the longer sailing times.

With speeds unlikely to get any slower, the industry is growing more vulnerable to rising fuel costs, and all container lines are now losing money, according to BIMCO, the biggest international shipping association.

“The potential for further slow-steaming seems to be of little significance to the overall market balance,” said Peter Sand, a Bagsvaerd, Denmark-based analyst at BIMCO, whose members control 65 percent of the world’s tonnage. “Compared with the 2009 crisis, we don’t see the same level of idling.”

That’s the message the industry is hearing from advisers including Paris-based Alphaliner, which estimates that slower- steaming may even start raising costs for carriers as they deploy more vessels to meet demand.

“There’s much less potential than in 2009 to mop up excess capacity in reducing the speed further,” Alphaliner said in a Jan. 23 e-mail.

Nomura International Plc today cut its recommendation on Maersk shares to “neutral” from “buy,” saying the container unit will also be unprofitable this year.

“Burdened by an unfavorable supply/demand balance at the industry level and an unwillingness by the bigger operators to remove vessels from service, we see only a modest recovery at Maersk Line in 2012,” Nomura analysts, including London-based Mark McVicar, said in a note.

For a nine-week trip with ships that carry 8,500 containers, a carrier can cut 3 percent of costs by slowing to 17.2 knots from 19.8 knots. Slowing further to 15.2 knots, by contrast, actually pushes up costs 0.5 percent as the expense of operating the additional ship starts to outweigh fuel reduction, Alphaliner estimates.

Maersk Line says it may be able to bring its speeds down even further. The company cut its average speed to about 17 knots last year from 20 knots in 2008, according to Morten Engelstoft, Maersk Line’s chief operating officer. The company’s whole fleet currently sails at about 16-18 knots, he said.

“There is still some potential for slow-steaming, both for us and probably for the industry,” Engelstoft said in a Jan. 23 interview. “We are looking into the possibility of super slow- steaming. That would be 12-16 knots.”

The 19th-century clippers, the fastest ships of their time, transported tea to the U.K. and U.S. from China and India, according to the website of the U.K. Tea Council. The ships, which had three or more masts and dozens of sails, could reach a peak average speed of more than 16 knots.

Slow-steaming, coupled with idling ships, helped turn a 2009 industry-wide operating loss of $19 billion into a $17 billion profit the year after, according to Drewry. The industry reverted to a $5.2 billion loss last year and prospects for 2012 are “dire” because the gap between supply and demand will grow even wider, the London-based consultant said in a Jan. 4 report.

Engelstoft said Maersk Line hasn’t yet committed to even slower-steaming as a strategy for weathering the crisis.

“We are looking at Asia-Europe, but it’s still too early to say if we will introduce super slow-steaming there and to what extent,” he said. “It’s also important for us to maintain a high level of reliability for our customers.”

Maersk may emerge a winner among the world’s biggest container lines, according to analyst Vabo. Still, the company’s shareholders probably will lose money in the short term because there are no immediate solutions for overcapacity, he said.

Other options for adjusting to overcapacity in the shipping industry are also proving untenable. Many ships haven’t yet been paid off by their owners, and scrapping vessels that represent a financial liability isn’t feasible, Sand at BIMCO said.

The average age of the world’s container fleet is less than five years compared with about 11 years for the global dry bulk fleet and nine years for tankers, according to BIMCO.

Closely held CMA CGM SA, the world’s third-largest line, said “there is still room to reduce the speed” of its vessels, though the Marseille-based company didn’t provide details in an e-mailed reply to questions. Hapag-Lloyd, based in Hamburg, could also sail slower, though it doesn’t have any plans to do so, Rainer Horn, a spokesman, said by e-mail.

Meanwhile, freight rates earned by carriers weren’t enough to cover fuel costs in the fourth quarter, according to BIMCO’s Sand. The price of container-ship fuel rose to a record on Jan. 20, up 32 percent from a year earlier, according to a Bloomberg index on global average prices for 380-centistoke bunker.

Full story at Bloomberg

From its humble origins selling coathangers out of his Cambridge garage 30 years ago, his firm – Sistema – has grown to the point where it employs more than 300 staff and holds an 80 per cent share of New Zealand’s food storage market, and 44 per cent of Australia’s.

Lindsay says demand for his firm’s products is so great that its high-tech, 270,000sq m Penrose factory, which has robotic production machinery, operates 24 hours a day.

Its KLIP IT containers, with their characteristic blue clips, are fixtures of Kiwi kitchens and staff lunchroom refrigerators.

Sistema, which exports globally and is on track to post a $100 million turnover this year, according to Lindsay, is a shining example of how manufacturing can survive – and thrive – in New Zealand.

He said the company had considered shifting production to a lower-cost country eight years ago.

“We made a commitment to stay in New Zealand and manufacture in New Zealand.”

It was costlier to keep production in Auckland, but the flipside was the benefit the brand gained from being manufactured locally rather than in Asia.

Lindsay said the growth the company was seeing in volumes enabled it to keep costs down.

“It’s so important that we keep growing so we can spread our overheads over the larger sales.”

Sistema, which is still 90 per cent owned by Lindsay (he sold a 10 per cent share to a close friend last year), claims to be the fastest-growing food storage container brand in the world.

“We’re growing at an annual rate of about 30 per cent a year,” he said, adding that the plan was to double Sistema’s size over the next five years. “That’s all been driven by export.”

As well as Australia, which is its largest market, the company exports to Britain, South America and Asia.

“Our big target is China this year.”

Lindsay said product innovation was a big driver of growth in the company.

Full story at the NZ Herald

The report, quoting DCB International director Mark Willis, said with dairy, beef and lamb exports coming into their four to six-month-long peak season, year-round annual exporters of produce, and new exporters, should not take it for granted space would be available.

“Space is beginning to tighten up already. If the season remains good for the rural sector, that peak [exporting season] could push out as far as June,” Willis said.

Often, major shipping lines, such as Hamburg Sud and Maersk, would send one-off “peak season loader” vessels to New Zealand, especially for the apple trade out of Nelson and Napier, but they have not been seen at Port Chalmers for the past two years.

Port Otago chief executive Geoff Plunket told the Otago Daily Times large exporters with weekly trade are unlikely to strike problems, but smaller exporters not requiring weekly services needed to look further ahead.

“We believe there is enough capacity for all the trade out of Port Chalmers, provided the small to medium [sized exporters] talk to their shippers and co-ordinate programmes,” he said.

Willis said because of the global recession, large shipping lines had in general been unprofitable during the past quarter and the likelihood was that for economies of scale, they would not be sending empty ships to New Zealand to take one-off peak season shipments.

Other transport sources in the South have said exporters found some major lines had overbooked space last year and subsequently had their exports “bumped” off booked space, and had to await the call of the next ship.

For southern exporters, there was a boost for options to get produce to Asian markets earlier this month, with Hong Kong-based Orient Overseas Container Line joining an existing export route of giant French shipping line CMA CGM, from Port Chalmers to Malaysia.

Willis said annual bulk cargo exports, such as logs and lumber, might find space harder to book, especially if the dairy and refrigerated beef and lamb sectors continued to post a “big season” of export volumes.

Shipping line Maersk, Port Otago’s largest customer, was contacted yesterday and said it was maintaining existing Asian services for exporters.

In November, Maersk said that although Malaysian shipping company MISC was quitting its involvement with Maersk in running the Northern Star and Southern Star services in June, which offer weekly services to Singapore and Malaysia, it (Maersk) had no plans to change the schedule of the nine-vessel service.

Maersk’s recent switch of its Southern Star service to Asian ports, from Ports of Auckland to Tauranga, was not expected to impact on transit times for local exporters or importers.

Port Otago has said in recent weeks neither the wharfside Auckland dispute, nor Maersk or Fonterra’s decisions to switch some export trade to Tauranga, would have any impact in the South.

More at Otago Daily Times

Consultation has opened on the Government’s proposed response to reviews of Fonterra’s farm gate milk price setting, which includes a recommendation that an annual milk price monitoring regime be undertaken by the Commerce Commission, and the raw milk regulations.

Yesterday, Fonterra chairman Sir Henry van der Heyden said the proposed changes to the raw milk regulations would not work.

Instead, New Zealanders would be subsidising increasingly foreign-owned dairy processors that did not sell milk in New Zealand and who sent their products and profits offshore.

“The Government’s move to require more raw milk to be handed over to increasingly foreign-owned dairy companies … will impose nearly $200 million of additional costs over the next three years alone and work against our efforts to reduce the price of milk in New Zealand,” he said.

The extra 200 million litres of milk it would be required to supply competitors each year would head offshore as the increasingly foreign-owned competitors simply shipped it as milk powder to their lucrative overseas markets, van der Heyden said.
“We are all for strong competition around the price of milk in New Zealand and we are happy to supply competitors who share our commitment to getting the price of milk down for Kiwis.

“But it makes no sense for Fonterra’s farmers to do the hard yards producing this milk, only to be forced to hand it over to companies who then ship it straight offshore and pocket the profits.”

The co-operative was competing fiercely in international markets against tough foreign competition. It made no sense to hit it with $200 million in extra costs with regulations that had no benefit for New Zealand consumers, Fonterra chief executive Theo Spierings said.

The proposed legislation would further fragment the New Zealand dairy industry and weaken the country’s export returns, strengthening its overseas competitors “at the expense of the New Zealand economy and the average New Zealander”, Fonterra Shareholders’ Council chairman Simon Couper said.

Primary Industries Minister David Carter said comprehensive work by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, with input from economic, regulatory and legal experts, had resulted in a set of preferred options for amendments to the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act (DIRA) and the raw milk regulations.

The review of farm gate milk prices found that although Fonterra’s approach was consistent with that expected in a competitive market, lack of transparency remained an issue, Carter said.

To strengthen confidence in Fonterra’s milk price setting process, the review recommended:

Embedding Fonterra’s current milk price governance arrangements in legislation.

Requiring Fonterra to publicly disclose information about its milk price setting.

Introducing an annual milk price monitoring regime to be undertaken by the Commerce Commission.

The amendments would result in a regulatory regime that promoted a more transparent and efficient dairy market, Carter said.

Full story at Otago Daily Times

Michelle Palmer, Executive Director of Natural Products New Zealand was quoted in the report saying that the natural products industry has been the ‘quiet achiever’ of the New Zealand economy.

“The natural products industry has continued to show significant growth, even throughout the challenging global economic conditions. Companies have continued to innovate and develop new markets through strong research and persistence, making the natural products industry now larger than the biotechnology and organics industries combined,” says Palmer.

Of the total revenue reported by the survey respondents, the industry derives 71 per cent of revenue through exports. Health supplements lead the different types of bioactivities driven by exports (58 per cent of respondents), followed by functional ingredients and functional foods. On average, businesses involved in functional ingredients generate the biggest export revenue.

Australia remains the key export market followed by USA, Japan, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Singapore and China. Strengthening markets include Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia and Thailand.

In the domestic market, businesses involved in supplements and cosmeceuticals – both finished product and ingredients – generate the biggest revenue. New Zealand cosmeceuticals are also increasing in popularity with international markets which is reflected in export revenue streams.

“There are many uniquely New Zealand ingredients with recognised health benefits that are highly prized by overseas markets due to our reputation for quality, efficacy and safety. With the imminent introduction of a New Zealand regulatory system, natural products companies will be able to more effectively market to countries that have a high level of regulation,” says Palmer.

Of those companies surveyed, the biggest barrier to growth is working with overseas regulatory systems, followed by access to distribution channels.

NZTE Director Strategic Initiatives, Chris Boalch says the study has highlighted the significance of the natural products industry to the New Zealand economy.

“A major revenue milestone has been reached for a key high growth sector that puts the natural products industry on an earnings par with the New Zealand viticulture industry. The growth in export performance across the natural products industry over the last three years has been very impressive and with the ongoing development of new opportunities this looks set to continue,” says Dr Boalch.

The natural products industry is made up of mainly small to medium sized companies, over half of which are less than 12 years old, employing 10 people or less and averaging revenues of $1 million or more. At the other end of the spectrum there are around 13 companies employing at least 50 people and generating revenues of over $25m.

NZTE’s survey of natural products companies includes those companies involved with a nutritional ingredient, food or end product derived from natural sources that are thought to have human health benefits and is available without prescription.

Source: www.Scoop.co.nz

Kiwi businesses were probably taking less than 10 per cent of the total opportunity presented by China, where the middle class was expected to swell from 300 million people to 800 million during the next 15 or so years, Alexander said.

Speaking from Hong Kong, after a visit to Guangzhou on the Chinese mainland, Alexander said New Zealand exporters tended to be unwilling to leave this country and immerse themselves in overseas markets.

“They prefer to sort of sit back [in New Zealand] and hope things are going to come their way,” he said.

“The willingness to take a number of trips and spend time overseas in general seems relatively low.

“One of the key things about China is that one does need to spend time on the ground building up relationships and finding a reliable [business] partner.”

Alexander said New Zealand had seen strong growth in its exports of primary products – such as wood and dairy – to China, but exports of non-primary goods to the world’s second largest economy had grown only 9 per cent during the past three years.

In the 2010 calendar year, according to Statistics NZ figures, New Zealand’s $4.8 billion in exports to China included close to $3 billion in dairy produce and wood.

“That just speaks of not too much advantage being taken of the market available,” Alexander said. “The sky’s the limit and my aim is to make people aware of that in a reasonable way.”

Alexander said food exporters, for example, needed to go to China and have a look through supermarkets to see where their products could slot in.

More at NZ Herald