Revised export forecasts released this week, show that the primary sector has lost ground in reaching the Government's target of doubling primary export earnings by 2025.
There has been a reduction of more than $4 billion in dairy export revenue. Photo: AFP
The Government set the $64 billion export goal two years ago.
But in its Situation and Outlook update, the Ministry for Primary Industries is predicting primary industry export earnings will drop by 9.5 percent for the current 2014-15 year, to about $34.5 billion.
The main reason for that will be a reduction of more than $4 billion in dairy export revenue.
MPI's sector policy director Jarred Mair said the reduction put primary export earnings behind target, but they were forecast to rise again in the 2015-16 year.
He said a $1.5 billion recovery was expected in the next season and MPI and the industry were working on a couple of initiatives to help that.