New Zealand's Milk Giant Fonterra Resumes Egypt Operations

Fonterra Co-Operative Group Ltd., producer of about a third of the world's dairy products, said Wednesday it has resumed operations in Egypt in the wake of political unrest that led to the ouster of the country's leader Hosni Mubarak.

"We had a bit of backlog at Egyptian ports but we have nearly cleared this and are back to business as usual," Tim Deane, Fonterra's director of global sales, told Dow Jones Newswires. "Our four staff have returned to work although we continue to monitor the situation very closely."

New Zealand's Fonterra, which sells around 17 billion new Zealand dollars (US$12.8 billion) worth of dairy products annually in 140 countries, is the latest foreign company to resume operations in Egypt after the country was rocked by unrest. Brewer Heineken NV, consumer goods giant Unilever NV, chemicals company Akzo Nobel NV and industrial giant Siemens AG said they had resumed near-normal operations in Egypt.

Many foreign companies, including Nissan Motor Co., French building-materials company Lafarge SA and General Motors Co., had suspended operations in late January as demonstrations against the Mubarak regime grew. Foreign workers were flown out of the country, but are now returning.

Fonterra doesn't provide a breakdown of exports to each of its markets, or Egypt.

New Zealand's exports to Egypt in the year to December were NZ$239.9 million, according to Statistics New Zealand. The bulk of those exports were in dairy products. Fonterra, a co-operative of about 10,500 farmers, controls about a third of all internationally traded dairy products.

-By Rebecca Howard, Dow Jones Newswires; 64-4-471-5990; rebecca.howard@dowjones.com

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