Topic “In the News News” — Exporter Magazine

The Middle East’s organic food market, valued at about USD$227 million a year, is growing at a pace of nearly 20%, mainly driven by the rising affinity of the youth population to embrace healthy and natural lifestyles. Saudi Arabia says it plans to spend 580 billion riyals (NZD$208 billion) in 2011 as it invests in education and infrastructure to spur growth in the top oil exporter, according to GulfNews.com. “There is a move towards the liberalisation of the supply of grain, but that will be phased in over the medium term … maybe over five years at least,” said Abd Elaziz Ellili, a departmental chief at the agency, l’Office des Cereales was quoted saying. The strength of the Australian dollar is hurting Australia’s wine sales in the US and popular wines are being replaced by cheaper product from Argentina as well as flavour-of-the-month labels from New Zealand, according to Stuff.co.nz. Food and drink industry survey participants are cautiously optimistic about 2011, with just over 63% of the respondents bullish about market conditions for the sector. Shaped exactly like the Secure Digital (SD) memory cards now used widely in compact digital cameras, the FluCard comes embedded with WiFi to transmit data to other wireless-enabled devices such as mobile phones, laptops and tablet computers. The article, quoting Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming, said recently that China hopes the US could relax its control on high-tech products export to China. China exported $842.74 billion worth of machinery and electronic products in the first 11 months, up 32.7% from a year earlier, Zhang Yujing, director of the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products (CCCME) was quoted saying. The report also said China has – after two days of high level talks – agreed to lower restrictions on the imports of wind turbines and telecommunications equipment, and other moves, that could lead to a substantial boost in US exports to the world’s second-largest economy