After a very long downward trend in the global dairy market, an upward trend was seen from April 2016 to September 2017. In the last few months following September, a downward trend has once again surfaced. The extent to which the prices of the different dairy products in the international market increased differs. The increase in the price of butter from the middle of 2016 to August 2017 was much higher than that of other types of dairy products, while the price of skimmed milk powder, a co-product of the manufacture of butter, remained much lower than that of other dairy products.
It appears that supply of and demand for dairy products in the international markets, with the exception of the supply of and demand for butter and skimmed milk powder, are at present fairly well balanced.