China's surprise import of New Zealand dairy tariffs will increase

In 2011, the scale of imported dairy products in China has been further expanded.

On March 1st, the General Administration of Customs announced that as of February 22 this year, the amount of unconcentrated milk and butter originating in New Zealand with a fat content of more than 1% had reached 1561.113 tons of cumulative import declarations this year, plus last year. The number of 198.529 tons imported in the form of goods on the way, that is, invoices that have not arrived yet, amounted to 1764.642 tons, and the number has exceeded the trigger level for the number of special safeguard measures of 1,505 tons this year. Therefore, as of February 26, 2011, import duties have been imposed on the above products at the MFN rate.

It is understood that according to relevant regulations, the import tariff of this commodity will increase to 15%.

New Zealand’s dairy exports rank first in the world. More than 93% of raw milk is processed into dry dairy products for export. Exports mainly include milk powder, butter and cheese. Exports mainly include the United States, China, and Japan. In 2010, China's total domestic milk powder was 1.1 million tons, while imported milk powder was 450,000 tons. New Zealand imported powdered milk accounted for 60% to 70% and the rest came from Australia, the United States, and Western Europe.

However, many milk powder company sources told reporters that raising the tariff on the product did not affect the company because the so-called "fat content greater than 1% unconcentrated milk and cream" is a kind of liquid cream, not the raw milk powder that the outside world thought. . "Our company does not import such products from the country, so it has no effect on the overall price." Yashili told reporters.

However, assault imports triggered by rising price expectations are still sufficient to alert the Chinese dairy industry.

In fact, the amount of raw milk powder imported from New Zealand and other countries in China is also growing rapidly, and it is very likely that it will exceed the number of trigger levels required.

According to the data released by the Customs at the same time, in 2011, the number of trigger levels that could actually be imported from solid milk and butter (mainly raw milk powder) imported from New Zealand, and non-solid milk and cream condensed but not sweetened was 109,000. Ton. Last year, the actual number of imports of such products in China was 105,000 tons.

According to a survey conducted by the world's largest dairy exporter, New Zealand-based Fonterra Group, on March 2nd, the price of whole milk powder has soared by 15% in two weeks and has risen by 41% in three months. Due to fears that the price of milk powder in New Zealand will rise in the future and supply will decrease, some Chinese companies have recently begun purchasing large quantities of milk powder.