New Zealand's exporters are diverting shipments originally bound for China into other markets as demand from the country's biggest trading partner cools, an official from the antipodean country's central bank said Thursday.
"We've certainly seen many of our exporters looking at, and actively diverting, product that they would have been looking to put into China, into other markets as well," said Karen Silk, assistant governor at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. "It is not the only export market."
Silk's remarks reflect how the slowdown in China's economy has rippled through to businesses elsewhere. Growth in the world's second-largest economy slowed to multi-year lows in the second quarter, weighed down by tepid domestic demand and a prolonged real estate slump. She spoke to CNBC's "Squawk Box Asia" on Thursday, a day after the central bank delivered its second consecutive interest rate hike to curb inflation.
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China has been New Zealand’s largest trading partner and top market, buying roughly a quarter of New Zealand’s total exports over the 12 months ending in July. New Zealand’s China-bound goods in 2025 were close to double that of the next two biggest export markets — the U.S. and Australia — combined, according to the New Zealand China Council.
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Elevated global commodity prices, including for wheat, have handed New Zealand’s pasture-based farmers a relative cost advantage even as China-bound volumes soften, Silk said.
“In some ways, New Zealand actually benefits from a price perspective when we have those supply factors going on globally,” she said.
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