By Bernard Hickey – interest.co.nz PM defends decision to block sale of Lochinver to Shanghai Pengxin; says decision not political; ministers made independent decisions; says public debate over foreign land sales not hurting National in polls. Prime Minister John Key has defended the decision by two of his ministers to reject the sale of the Lochinver Station near Taupo to …

After years of high-speed economic growth, China moved down a gear. This created concern in some circles, yet as session moderator Minter Ellison Rudd Watts chair Cathy Quinn noted: both Air New Zealand (then) CEO Christopher Luxon and Fonterra (then) CEO Theo Spierings thought any negativity was overdone. Instead, they were tuning their strategies to meet the challenge of a …

By Christopher Adams – NZ Herald Fonterra chief executive Theo Spierings says losing Chinese market share to European dairy competitors is a concern for New Zealand. Addressing the China Business Summit in Auckland this morning, he outlined the dairy giant’s five-year plan in the world’s second-biggest economy. Spierings said Fonterra was aiming to grow its business in China from around …