Hopes falling Aust dollar to boost milk industry
Posted
The head of a south-east New South Wales dairy company says the falling Australian dollar will insulate the milk industry against the world financial shake-up.
Bega Cheese chairman Barry Irvin says the dollar has previously been rising against its United States counterpart, making it increasingly harder to sell products traded in greenback currency.
Mr Irvin says the credit crunch is now forcing the Australian dollar down, giving local products the edge in a highly competitive world market.
He says this is a big improvement on previous months.
"On top of all the other upheavals in the world markets, we are seeing commodity prices for dairy come down at a very rapid rate," he said.
"We are losing a lot of the gains we made last year, so the dollar coming down at an equivalent rate will off-set some of that impact.
"We are very pleased to see the dollar coming down, so it means we can maintain our Australian dollar return at least something like last year's return."
