The New Zealand dollar shed gains in local trading amid fears seismic activity in North Korea may be the result of nuclear testing, a prospect likely to spook investors. The kiwi fell to 83.45 US cents at 5pm in Wellington from 83.78 cents at 8am and up from 83.28 cents yesterday. The trade-weighted index rose to 76.01 from 75.54 yesterday. …

Sir Don McKinnon couldn’t have picked a better person than Pat English to be the NZ China Council’s inaugural executive director. The former NZ Consul-General and Trade Commissioner in Guangzhou has long been a stalwart in the bilateral relationship. English is deeply versed in New Zealand’s trading relationship; knows heaps of smaller firms as well as the larger NZ companies …

Telecom has put its email service provider Yahoo! on notice after what one executive says is a service that has left Telecom running no more than “a very expensive customer complaints service.” New Zealand’s largest telecommunications retailer says a “series of issues” over the past year, including this week’s highly disruptive attack by hackers, had “impacted negatively” on the Yahoo! …