Submission to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade on Non-Tariff Barriers
Introduction
This submission is made on behalf of the New Zealand International Business Forum (NZIBF).
NZIBF is a multi-sector member organisation representing over $50 billion of New Zealand’s largest export sectors and key business associations, with strong representation from the agriculture, horticulture, processed food, wine, and seafood industries. These sectors all face rising non-trade barriers (NTBs) including, inter alia, a varied mix of tariff rate quotas, import licensing, product standards, and technical regulations which are increasingly being used to restrict trade and protect domestic industries.
Executive Summary
Non-tariff barriers (NTBs) are “non-tariff measures” (NTMs) applied before, at or beyond the border in a way that is more trade restrictive or burdensome than necessary. NTBs are increasing in prevalence and impact as tariffs have declined over time. They can be difficult to identify and measure, but NTM compliance costs are over 20% of the value of New Zealand exports, and more than $12 billion annually, although a substantial amount of this cost is from risk management measures that can expand trade.[1]
NTBs are found not only affecting goods trade, but also services and digital exports.
New Zealand exporters are operating in an increasingly complex and uncertain global environment, marked by intensifying geopolitical pressures, regulatory overdrive in key markets, and rising trade costs. As the Government has noted, the international system that New Zealand has long relied on is under strain, with growing protectionism and an increased focus by major powers on their own economic security to the detriment of free trade.
Consequently, New Zealand is likely to face more, not fewer NTBs, with trade measures increasingly used to pursue broader political and strategic objectives rather than purely trade-related concerns – often in a way that adds unwarranted costs to trade – and risking New Zealand exports becoming ‘collateral damage’ as well as being directly targeted in some cases. In this context, robust trade enforcement capability is essential. Defending New Zealand’s trade interests, including our continued rights to existing terms and conditions for market access, requires deep expertise, sustained institutional capability, sufficient resourcing to enforce New Zealand’s hard-won market access gains, and a close working partnership between policymakers and the businesses most directly affected by these trade barriers.
Definition
Economies use a range of NTMs to organise and regulate markets. Many of these measures are in place to achieve legitimate goals, such as the protection of human, animal or plant health or safety, transparency or quality assurance, or to regulate a particular aspect of the functioning of the market. However, NTMs can become NTBs, either because the way they are designed or implemented is more trade-restrictive than necessary to meet a legitimate objective (whether intentionally or unintentionally), because they are discriminatory (between trade partners or between imported or domestically produced products), or because they are deliberately designed to keep imports out of a market.
NTBs typically add unwarranted costs, time delays, excessive “red tape” or other barriers to market entry. NTBs lower competitiveness for business, raise prices for consumers, distort trade flows and inhibit investment. They can be particularly burdensome for SMEs and can curtail the ability of all firms to participate effectively in global value chains. These impacts can occur even where cross-border activity is not the target, or where a legitimate policy objective is intended. NTBs are notoriously difficult to identify, categorise, address and remove and they can be many and varied, and require close co-operation between government agencies and business.
Sectoral impacts
Research by the economic consultancy Sense Partners in 2022 found that the primary sector and processed food products have the highest numbers of NTMs globally. NTMs fall most heavily on New Zealand’s dairy, beverages, and meat products, placing a particularly heavy imposition on some of our biggest exporters.[2]
Members of NZIBF report that a variety of NTBs impact goods exports. Broadly, the most significant NTBs affecting NZIBF members are:
a) Tariff rate quotas and related overly complex and costly administrative procedures
b) Subsidies, incentives and discretionary loans or tax rebates offered to competing domestically produced product
c) Discriminatory requirements for product or factory approvals prior to shipment
d) Discriminatory sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) requirements
e) Discriminatory labelling requirements which do not follow international norms
f) Lack of recognition of international standards
Specific sector NTBs
Meat
NTBs cost the New Zealand red meat sector an estimated $1.5 billion annually, acting as a major hindrance to growth.[3] To compare, this is almost as much as the value of New Zealand’s total exports to Thailand, which were NZ$1.6 billion in 2025. NTBs facing the meat industry include: Onerous premises audits and registrations, complex and inconsistent halal requirements, burdensome or unnecessary certification, lack of transparency of requirements, inconsistent technical requirements, prescriptive labelling requirements, inefficient import checks, consularisation of documentation and private standards.
Similarly to the Meat Industry, NTBs are estimated to cost New Zealand dairy exporters billions of dollars annually, significantly exceeding simple tariff costs. For example, a recent industry report estimated non-tariff measures cost dairy exporters $7.8 billion, compared with around $1.5 billion of tariffs.[4] The main NTBs facing New Zealand’s dairy industry are SPS measures, technical regulations, and complex certification and administrative requirements. These include strict and often inconsistent animal-health rules, testing regimes, labelling and packaging standards, and extensive paperwork that vary by market. Regulatory divergence across countries means exporters must repeatedly adapt products and processes, raising compliance costs and delaying market entry.
Wine
NTBs in the wine sector fall into a number of categories, but two key NTBs involve labelling and winemaking practices:
(a) Winemaking practices: A wine that is produced in NZ may have to meet a variety of different standards to ensure market access. The best solution to this regulatory divergence is mutual acceptance, such as that already in place via the World Wine Trade Group. We encourage MFAT to support other countries (such as the UK) to accede to the group and to look for opportunities to agree other mutual acceptance arrangements.
(b) Labelling: A single wine will require a different label for each export market. Research commissioned by FSANZ in 2021 demonstrated the high cost of labelling changes for alcoholic beverages. These costs are disproportionately borne by wine (due to having the greatest number of SKUs and the smallest number of containers per SKU). A trans-Tasman labelling change on alcoholic beverages can have a one-off cost of anywhere from $61.2 to $521.4million.
Horticulture
According to the Horticulture Export Authority’s biennial Barriers to Our Export Trade report, tariffs cost the horticulture sector around NZ$135 million per year, but industry feedback is that the non-tariff measures are likewise the cause of significant frictions, including lengthy market access applications, overly complex regulations, product labelling, pre-shipment inspections and compliance with burdensome phytosanitary requirements.
Apples and Pears
The pip fruit industry faces stringent phytosanitary, market-specific certification, documentation and labelling processes, and technical standards that vary by destination. Exporters must comply with detailed pest-management regimes, inspections, and official assurance programmes to address biosecurity concerns, as well as differing residue requirements, particularly in high-value markets. These requirements are often complex, differ across countries, and can change over time. In some markets, quota arrangements, or overly restrictive phytosanitary measures further limit flexibility and effective market access, even where trade agreements are in place.
Kiwifruit
The main NTBs faced by the New Zealand kiwifruit industry are phytosanitary and plant-health requirements, market-specific technical regulations, and complex certification and documentation processes. Differing pest-management protocols, inspections, labelling and packaging rules across markets increase compliance costs and administrative burden. While tariffs are generally low or eliminated under FTAs, these regulatory and procedural requirements remain the primary constraints on efficient market access for New Zealand kiwifruit exports.
Seafood
NTBs also impose costs on the New Zealand seafood industry, even though traditional tariffs on fish products have largely been reduced or eliminated through FTAs. The main NTBs facing the seafood industry include SPS Measures such as food safety standards, residue limits, and disease controls; TBTs such as labelling, traceability, sustainability certification, and packaging rules; and customs and administrative procedures including import licensing, inspections, and documentation requirements that can cause delays and added costs.
NZIBF’s Previous Work on NTBs
NZIBF has consistently highlighted the negative impact of NTBs, including in our most recent trade agreements. For example, in our submission on the India FTA negotiations in April 2025 we noted our hope that after its conclusion “only robust and at most minimally trade-restrictive non-tariff measures, designed to meet legitimate policy objectives, [will] remain in place.”
Most recently the NZIBF (together with ExportNZ) has made a submission on the proposed Open Plurilateral on NTBs, a new “opt-in” trade cooperation initiative being developed at the time by MFAT aimed at reducing NTBs. We noted in the submission that the proposal to use a plurilateral mechanism to address NTBs is a novel way to address a major issue for exporters and we welcome this new thinking and continuing attention to NTBs. However, the success of any plurilateral depends very much on the number and trade weight of participants. A major consideration would be whether New Zealand’s major trading partners in the Asia Pacific region and Europe are participating. Ideally participants should also share a common understanding about the impact of NTBs and how they be tackled and if possible avoided. We also noted in our submission that developing wider acceptance of APEC’s Non-Binding Principles might provide a useful place to start.[5] For products which must bear a label, we would also welcome MFAT supporting a move towards electronic labelling (both for NZ and offshore), while acknowledging that ultimately other agencies in NZ/Aus would have to support this.
Trade Digitalisation as an NTB mitigation strategy
NZIBF Members have previously asked Government for more concerted and decisive action to support end-to-end paperless trade. Paperless trade allows producers to share a trusted ‘stack’ of information about a product, potentially including sustainability and other credentials, throughout its journey through the supply chain, increasing visibility, efficiency and integrity. Globally, the current framework for paperless trade is fragmented. However, universal adoption of interoperable paperless trade would serve as a valuable strategy to mitigate NTBs, by reducing compliance costs (including for emerging NTBs such as those relating to sustainability), and removing procedural obstacles resulting from under-resourced or burdensome border processes.
The Government has made welcome efforts to address this issue in global trade architecture, including in bilateral FTAs, in the CPTPP upgrade, in the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement, in the WTO E-Commerce Agreement and in the Future of Trade and Investment Partnership. However, in some cases, such as the EU FTA, the EU should be strongly encouraged to upgrade existing approaches as soon as possible to bring them into line with the most advanced international models; in other cases, such as DEPA, the UK FTA or in the Trans-Tasman context, little work has been done on pilot projects or other initiatives to implement the undertakings in those agreements.
Extensive work over recent years by MPI and Customs to develop domestic electronic SPS certification and digitalised border processes is very welcome. However, more work is required to remove the remaining obstacles to the enabling legal environment needed for critical digital trade documents. Key actions include modernising the legal status of electronic Bills of Lading and other negotiable instruments by pursuing adoption of the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR). More work is also needed to integrate New Zealand’s full trade documentation systems including SPS and origin certification alongside Customs declarations. In both cases, the outstanding issues, while relatively small, mean that businesses are unable to digitalise the full package of trade documents and processes, thereby failing to realise the true potential of paperless trade in terms of efficiency, cost-saving and seamless global interoperability.
We have registered our support for New Zealand’s involvement in initiatives such as the Joint Working Group (JWG) with Chile/Singapore as an opportunity for New Zealand to learn what these economies are doing to use digital tools to support businesses needing to substantiate their environmental credentials. Singapore is a global leader in the digital economy and both Singapore and Chile are involved in paperless trade pilots through APEC.
Electronic labelling should also be supported and recognised as equivalent to physical labelling for food and other products. Divergent and prescriptive labelling requirements are among the most commonly and costly NTBs. Electronic labelling would reduce compliance costs while preserving, and even improving, consumer protection and regulatory oversight.
NZIBF recommendations
1. Note that the NZIBF welcomes engagement with officials on NTB issues that affect our members. NZIBF Members appreciate the support of MFAT, MPI, MBIE, NZTE and other agencies in assisting exporters to understand regulatory settings in offshore markets and to addressing issues notified by exporters. The inception of MFAT’s new FTA Boost Unit is timely and we look forward to continued collaboration with key officials to further improve the process of identifying, prioritising and resolving NTBs including through coordination with industry. We note also the importance of collaboration and coordination between MFAT, MBIE, and MPI on resolving NTBs.
2. Note that we recognise and support the steps MFAT has taken to address NTBs through the https://www.tradebarriers.govt.nz website and regular reporting of outcomes.
3. We encourage the Government to enhance in-market capability, to help our exporters access timely, specialist support when NTB issues arise. This could include prioritising the availability of dedicated trade experts within posts, with the mandate and continuity to work through complex NTB cases from identification to resolution. Feedback from members indicates that where this kind of capability is in place, outcomes tend to be more consistent and effective. Building on these successes by embedding deeper technical expertise and clear ownership of cases across the network would help ensure a more seamless, end-to-end approach to resolving NTBs in key markets.
4. Note that New Zealand is likely to face increasing non-tariff barriers driven by non-trade objectives, and this will require an increased trade enforcement capability with a view to balancing our offensive and defensive trade interests. It is important to our exporters to ensure MFAT has sufficient capacity to work with industry to identify when foreign government conduct may breach New Zealand’s multilateral or bilateral trade agreements, to scope legal options, and to assist industry to challenge such measures where appropriate. In this context, our members would also value a clearer link between the use of Government lawyers and working with exporters to solve NTBs.
5. We encourage the Government to continue to pursue opportunities (such as consultative mechanisms in existing FTAs and new initiatives, such as the Future of Trade and Investment Partnership) to build further on APEC’s Principles to ensure non-tariff measures (NTMs) do not become trade-distorting NTBs.
6. The NZIBF considers it would be beneficial for MFAT to continue exploring opportunities to improve the accessibility and usability of information on non-tariff barriers (NTBs) for businesses. This could include the use of emerging technologies, such as AI-powered tools (for example, the UK FTA chatbot), to help businesses better understand what constitutes an NTB, distinguish between legitimate regulatory measures and potential trade barriers, and identify appropriate avenues for raising concerns. Consideration could also be given to enhancing existing tools, such as the Tariff Finder, to improve access to relevant information and support business engagement.
7. Note that NZIBF Members also see the value of more concerted and decisive action to encourage end to end paperless trade as a strategy to mitigate NTBs, by reducing compliance costs and removing procedural obstacles resulting from under-resourced or burdensome border processes.
8. Note the view that NZIBF members would welcome clear and early official guidance when it is considered that an NTB has little chance of being successfully resolved with government-to-government engagement, in a timely or commercially meaningful way. It is useful for industry members to manage expectations and to know when they should pursue other avenues relating to specific NTBs.
[1] https://www.mfat.govt.nz/assets/Trade-General/Trade-stats-and-economic-research/Non-tariff-measures-Impacts-trends-and-effects-on-exports-from-New-Zealand-January-2022.pdf
[2] https://www.mfat.govt.nz/assets/Trade-General/Trade-stats-and-economic-research/Non-tariff-measures-Impacts-trends-and-effects-on-exports-from-New-Zealand-January-2022.pdf
[3] https://mia.co.nz/barriers-to-international-trade-report-2025/
[4] https://dcanz.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Solid-foundations-Final-04-September-2023.pdf
[5] We note with appreciation that the development of these APEC Principles was led by New Zealand; and that the ‘APEC Business Advisory Council NTM/NTB Principles’ on which they were based were likewise initiated and developed by ABAC New Zealand.
ENDSs