New Zealand Exporters Divert China-Bound Shipments as Demand Cools

According to CNBC, New Zealand exporters are diverting shipments originally headed for China into other markets as demand from the country's biggest trading partner weakens, Reserve Bank of New Zealand Assistant Governor Karen Silk said. Silk said many exporters are actively redirecting products they had planned to send to China, adding that China is not the only export market. She spoke on CNBC's "Squawk Box Asia" a day after the Reserve Bank of New Zealand raised its key interest rate by a quarter percentage point to 2.75% and signaled another increase could come by year-end. China has been New Zealand's largest trading partner and top market, buying about a quarter of New Zealand's total exports in the 12 months ending in July, while New Zealand's China-bound goods in 2025 were close to double those sent to the U.S. and Australia combined, according to the New Zealand China Council. New Zealand supplies more than half of China's dairy imports, under a bilateral trade agreement that gave all its dairy products duty-free access in 2024. Silk said elevated global commodity prices, including wheat, have given New Zealand's pasture-based farmers a relative cost advantage even as China-bound volumes soften.