KEY POINTS:
Taiwan is ready to resume importing New Zealand apples, a month after the discovery of a codling moth in a fuji apple halted shipments.
"New Zealand has submitted a report on tightening quarantine measures. We are reading the report and, in principle, agree to resume apple imports from New Zealand," said Taiwan Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine official Chang Chih-yang.
Taiwan planned to send inspectors to New Zealand, where a Hawkes Bay orchard and packhouse have been suspended from exporting apples to Taiwan for the rest of this year.
"If the inspection proves New Zealand has improved quarantine measures, we will resume importing New Zealand apples," he said.
Pipfruit New Zealand chief executive Peter Beaven said Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry staff had identified a potential gap in procedures at packhouse level and modified processes to cover that hole - but it was not the reason codling moth reached Taiwan.
New Zealand apples account for 12.3 per cent of Taiwan imports. Most of the rest come from the United States, Chile and Japan. But the trade with Taiwan in the premium fuji variety accounts for about 7 per cent of New Zealand's export apple production and is worth about $40 million a year.
As this is not the season for Japanese or US apples, Taiwan had been relying on apples from New Zealand for the March-May period, the main harvest in New Zealand apples. Taiwan imports about 4000 tonnes of New Zealand apples each of these three months.
Chile, is also urging Taiwan to lift a ban on its apples, imposed after a live codling moth was found in a shipment of apples from Chile on May 4.
- NZPA
