Although prices remain extremely weak at present, global dairy markets will take heart from the latest dairy import figures coming from China. For the first three months of 2016, dairy commodity imports are more than 37% ahead of where they were in 2015 in volume terms, with just under 630,000t of product snapped up by Chinese buyers.

This resurgence in Chinese demand is the first flicker of positivity in months and if it can be sustained, should help lift markets in the second half of 2016. However, while these figures suggest Chinese demand is in recovery, the price point of dairy products has certainly changed for buyers.

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Chinese imports for January to March may be up 37% year-on-year, but the value of these imports is only up 18% to a little over $1.7bn. The only dairy product to show an increase in price point is infant formula.

Infant formula volumes imported by China are almost 35% ahead of 2015 at 45,500t, but the value of infant formula imports are close to 45% ahead of where they were this time last year at $650m. This reflects the strong demand from Chinese consumers for safely manufactured and imported baby powder.

The other major product imported by China is whole milk powder (WMP), with imports up 25% to 205,000t. However, in value terms, WMP imports are just 8% ahead of 2015 at just over $500m.

On the supply side, EU production continues to surge ahead, with output for the first two months of the year up 7.4% to more than 25m tonnes compared with the same period in 2015.

Ireland continues to top production increase tables in the EU, with milk output for January to February up almost 36% to over 460,000t.

In the US, milk production increased 1.8% for the month of March to 8.4m tonnes, despite a slowdown from its biggest-producing state California.