NZ's monthly trade deficit has widened more than expected as falling prices for logs and dairy products weighed on exports.

A long-awaited free trade agreement between New Zealand and South Korea appears close to being inked following talks in Seoul last week.

The Prime Minister has finally acknowledged the political reality that there are limits to growth as his Government takes a tentative step towards ensuring dairy effluent doesn't continue to despoil our major waterways.

Two-way trade with China has doubled every five years since the early 1990s but the historic growth rates may not continue.

Kiwi companies are increasingly turning to trade fairs in China as a gateway to the international and Chinese market.

World dairy prices showed signs of levelling off today with the GlobalDairyTrade price index gaining 1.4 per cent at the fortnightly auction.

The Reserve Bank has released an animated educational video explaining the functions of money in New Zealand.

Agri-tech company Tru-Test Corporation has completed a $10 million share buyback while the stake of major shareholder KTT has been boosted from 21.7 per cent to 39.6 per cent.

Hopes of a more stable world dairy market were dashed yesterday when GlobalDairyTrade auction prices resumed their downward slide.

World prices for a basket of New Zealand's export commodities fell 1.3 per cent last month, with dairy products once more leading the decline.

New Zealand commodity prices fell for a seventh consecutive month to an 18-month low in September, led by declining dairy prices.

The NZ dollar edged up following its dramatic slump yesterday after the Reserve Bank confirmed speculation it intervened in the currency market.

The New Zealand dollar dropped against the greenback yesterday afternoon after the Reserve Bank released data which confirmed that it had put its money where its mouth was last month, selling $521 million in a bid to push the exchange rate lower.

The NZ dollar dropped to a 13-month low today after figures confirmed the Reserve Bank intervened in foreign exchange markets last month in a bid to bring it down.

The New Zealand dollar could fall significantly over the next six to nine months and the Reserve Bank would welcome that, says Governor Graeme Wheeler.

Single desk seller Zespri says the kiwifruit industry is looking like putting on a growth spurt after the Psa virus cut a swathe through the country's most productive areas from 2010 through to 2013.

The gap between what New Zealand earns from the rest of the world through trade and investment and what it pays widened in the June quarter as falling dairy exports started to weigh on the trade balance.

NZ's current account deficit rose by $1.4b in the past three months reflecting falling dairy prices and a large revision to investment flows into the country.

Former Fonterra boss Andrew Ferrier has been appointed chairman of New Zealand software developer Orion Health

Economists have cut their forecasts of economic growth in the current year, the latest quarterly survey conducted by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research has found.

The tourism industry wants to outperform Government forecasts to cement its position as one of New Zealand's biggest export sectors.

New Zealanders are evenly divided about whether farmers are moving quickly enough to reduce their impact on the environment, a Herald DigiPoll survey shows.

Berry company OOB's products will be stocked in all Coles supermarkets across Australia in a major coup for the company.

Russia's decision to play hardball with Western food producers could not have come at a worse time for the New Zealand dairy sector as the season starts to get into full swing.