Mark Hazeldine
Roger: Mark Hazeldine, Agritech Sector Manager, for New Zealand Trade and Enterprise is back in the country after taking a delegation of diary technology exporters to China. Mark, welcome.
Mark: Thanks very much, Roger. Good to be here.
Roger: Mark, everybodys talking about opportunities for New Zealand to do business with China. What are the opportunities for our dairy industry to get involved?
Mark: Were just going through a process of evaluating exactly what those opportunities are and where New Zealand could fit in. To put New Zealand dairy technologies into China in such a way whereby we imbed ourselves into their consciousness so that weve got the top-of-the-mind awareness, and we do it in a commercial, profitable manner.
Roger: Wheres the demand coming from?
Mark: Well the demand is coming from something which most developing countries in the world are looking for, and that is to improve the health and the nutrition of their people and its generally seen that the way of doing this is that you improve the quality of the milk that they get and you also improve the quantity.
Now, China at the moment consumes on average 13 kilos per person. They want to, in a relatively short time, increase that to 30 kilos, and they should be able to do that with about another 10 million lactating cows. But when you realize that the world average of developed countries is over a hundred kilos per head, you realize that theyve got a long way to go.
Roger: Should we be doing this? Is there a danger that China will take our technology and use it to compete against us?
Mark: Youre quite right to ask that question, and its one that we ask ourselves all the time. Would they compete with us in terms of milk production in the world? No, we dont see that happening. Theyve got a very large population 1.3 billion. At the moment they have about 6 million lactating dairy cows and about 30 million lactating buffalo. So theyve got a long way to go themselves. We dont see them competing in that sense. With the dairy technologies that well be sending over there, we dont see them as competing provided that we can manage the products and services that were putting in there in such a way that the components themselves will never be as effective as the complete package and we provide the complete package, not them.
Roger: Does that include people? Is there a potential trade in education?
Mark: Yes, and that is something we certainly want to do, and Chinas had a huge history in horticulture and theyre certainly superb at producing vegetables. When it comes to animals, though, theyve really been in poultry and pig production. Some dairy cows, some beef cattle but its very, very small. The idea of increasing their national herd from in the short term from 6 million cows to 16 million, means theres a lot of people who havent had exposure to dairying in the past who are going to have to be exposed and thats where they need us.
Roger: Has there been any study done to establish the actual monetary size in China?
Mark: Weve been doing evaluations and projections on how big the market is at the moment, if they reach their projections whereabouts its going to be, in a relatively few short years were looking at for New Zealand 2 billion dollars, thats what it would mean to us.
Roger: In annual export earnings?
Mark: Yes, which is in annual export earnings, the sale of goods and services and then also the royalties, dividends, what-have-you that we get back from China.
Roger: Mark, thanks for joining us
Mark: Ive enjoyed it.
Mark: Thanks very much, Roger. Good to be here.
Roger: Mark, everybodys talking about opportunities for New Zealand to do business with China. What are the opportunities for our dairy industry to get involved?
Mark: Were just going through a process of evaluating exactly what those opportunities are and where New Zealand could fit in. To put New Zealand dairy technologies into China in such a way whereby we imbed ourselves into their consciousness so that weve got the top-of-the-mind awareness, and we do it in a commercial, profitable manner.
Roger: Wheres the demand coming from?
Mark: Well the demand is coming from something which most developing countries in the world are looking for, and that is to improve the health and the nutrition of their people and its generally seen that the way of doing this is that you improve the quality of the milk that they get and you also improve the quantity.
Now, China at the moment consumes on average 13 kilos per person. They want to, in a relatively short time, increase that to 30 kilos, and they should be able to do that with about another 10 million lactating cows. But when you realize that the world average of developed countries is over a hundred kilos per head, you realize that theyve got a long way to go.
Roger: Should we be doing this? Is there a danger that China will take our technology and use it to compete against us?
Mark: Youre quite right to ask that question, and its one that we ask ourselves all the time. Would they compete with us in terms of milk production in the world? No, we dont see that happening. Theyve got a very large population 1.3 billion. At the moment they have about 6 million lactating dairy cows and about 30 million lactating buffalo. So theyve got a long way to go themselves. We dont see them competing in that sense. With the dairy technologies that well be sending over there, we dont see them as competing provided that we can manage the products and services that were putting in there in such a way that the components themselves will never be as effective as the complete package and we provide the complete package, not them.
Roger: Does that include people? Is there a potential trade in education?
Mark: Yes, and that is something we certainly want to do, and Chinas had a huge history in horticulture and theyre certainly superb at producing vegetables. When it comes to animals, though, theyve really been in poultry and pig production. Some dairy cows, some beef cattle but its very, very small. The idea of increasing their national herd from in the short term from 6 million cows to 16 million, means theres a lot of people who havent had exposure to dairying in the past who are going to have to be exposed and thats where they need us.
Roger: Has there been any study done to establish the actual monetary size in China?
Mark: Weve been doing evaluations and projections on how big the market is at the moment, if they reach their projections whereabouts its going to be, in a relatively few short years were looking at for New Zealand 2 billion dollars, thats what it would mean to us.
Roger: In annual export earnings?
Mark: Yes, which is in annual export earnings, the sale of goods and services and then also the royalties, dividends, what-have-you that we get back from China.
Roger: Mark, thanks for joining us
Mark: Ive enjoyed it.