Milk powder, butter, and cheese are hot commodities for the kiwi exporter. The latest report from Statistics New Zealand indicates that the export value of these products was up $209 for the month of April, a 54.5 percent jump over 2005. In total, these three products make up $592 million exported, or 19.6% of total exports for the island nation.

These sales totals were the highest ever for an April month. The main contributor to the increase was milk powder, which was up $145 million (77.0 percent). The increase in exports of milk powder, butter and cheese was spread across many of New Zealand’s trading partners: Venezuela, the United Arab Emirates, the People’s Republic of China, the Philippines, Iran and Jordan all showed increases exceeding $10 million since April 2005.