New Zealand has implemented revised pre-export kiwifruit checking processes for shipments to China, paving the way for single-desk marketer Zespri to resume exports to the People’s Republic next week.
The new procedures have been approved by New Zealand’s Ministry for Primary Industries, which is now notifying relevant Chinese authorities.
Zespri temporarily suspended its exports to Chinaearlier this month to address the discovery of a fungus by Chinese quarantine authorities in some shipments. The fungus was identified as Neofabraea Actinidiae, promting China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) to issue an offical “warning notification.”
Zespri confirmed there had been two more detections of Neofabraea Actinidiae in consignments of fruit that arrived in market before the new checking procedures were put in place and it is possible there may be more finds.
However, the marketer is confident the suspension will not derail its Chinese sales campaign, with the issue only affecting around 2 per cent of the fruit that has arrived in China to date.
“Sales of kiwifruit which have cleared into China continue as normal and our sales season continues positively in China, on track to exceed last year’s volume, with another 7m trays forecast to export to China this season,” Zespri said in a statement.
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