Export development

The Potato Industry Export Market Development Group is a subcommittee of Potatoes New Zealand and is made up of growers and exporters.

The Group is funded by a $5 per tonne potato cyst nematode (PCN) levy that all growers pay on top of their commodity levy. Potatoes New Zealand devotes that special levy to funding projects to gain access to new markets for our fresh potatoes and maintaining access to existing markets.

The approves a programme of work to investigate and assist in opening up and developing new export markets. The market access work focuses on new markets which previously have prohibited the import of New Zealand potatoes. This work involves negotiating with New Zealand and foreign governments the access conditions that will permit New Zealand to export to these countries. Currently the committee is focusing on market access for fresh potatoes to Australia, Japan and Korea, as well as keeping a watch on the conditions imposed in markets we can already access.

The Group also undertakes market development activities to boost exports in markets that are open to New Zealand potatoes. While it doesn't get involved in commercial exporting activities, such as promoting particular products in particular countries, it does invest in market research and the generic promotion of the New Zealand fresh potato industry. One of the group's latest success stories has been opening up the Taiwanese market, resulting in our first commercial shipment of fresh potatoes to Taiwan in 2009.

The Group is also investigating new opportunities in Malaysia, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. For more information about this work, click here.