Dairy prices gain 5.9%

Wednesday 2nd March 2011

Dairy commodity prices continued to rise at Fonterra's overnight online auction, with the globalDairyTrade trade weighted index rising 5.9%, and the average winning price up to US$4826 (NZ$6446) from US$4540 a fortnight ago.

For anhydrous milk fat, the trade weighted price edged up 1.1% to US$6424, skim milk powder gained 2.3% to US$3977, and wholemilk powder was up 9.6% to US$4619.

ANZ said larger increases for shorter term contracts indicated supply concerns remained to the fore, while BNZ's Mike Jones pointed out the overnight rise of 5.9% took the year-to-date rise to a "whopping" 28%.

Yesterday, the latest ANZ commodity price index showed world prices for New Zealand's main export commodities rose 2.7% in February to another record. It was the sixth consecutive monthly rise for the index which is up a cumulative 21% over the past six months.

NZPA

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