New Zealand border control agencies are to tighten import and quarantine controls on organic imports following a review of the causes of a plant disease that has devastated the country's multi-million-dollar industry and exports.

The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) announced Wednesday it was implementing all six recommendations from an independent report into the outbreak of Psa-V, a virulent form of Pseudomonas syringae pv. Actinidiae (Psa), a canker that kills kiwifruit vines.

"The review has found shortcomings in the way MPI's systems and processes were applied to the importation of kiwifruit, kiwifruit pollen, kiwifruit nursery stock, kiwifruit seeds and horticultural equipment, prior to the Psa outbreak," MPI director-general Wayne McNee said in a statement.

"While the review also says that it does not automatically follow that these shortcomings contributed to the entry of Psa-V into New Zealand, improvements are needed, and MPI is moving immediately to implement those improvements," McNee said.

McNee said although improvements had been identified, New Zealand has a world class biosecurity system.

"Biosecurity risks are always changing and we need to be constantly improving and adapting our system as well. Identifying improvements where incursions happen is part of the reason why our system is so strong," he said.

Among the recommendations, the report said the MPI must take steps "to ensure the border processes in place for imports of risk goods remain robust."

Primary Industries Minister David Carter said he would monitor the work closely and expected a progress report within three months.

"When Psa was first discovered here in 2010, the government moved rapidly to support the kiwifruit industry, committing 25 million NZ dollars (20.13 million U.S. dollars) in a dollar-for- dollar partnership to help manage the disease," Carter said in a statement.

However, the opposition Green Party said the report highlighted the ministry's "lack of a strategic view, a failure to adequately respond to changing circumstances, and the absence of effective working relationships between the ministry, industry stakeholders and scientific researchers."

"Once these diseases are in, they are in and the tax payer and the producers are stuck with huge costs to clean up or manage the impacts," Green Party biosecurity spokesperson Steffan Browning said in a statement.

Biosecurity spokesperson for the main opposition Labour Party, Damien O'Connor, said the report showed a lack of resources for biosecurity was putting at risk the country's native flora and fauna, its reputation and tourism.

"We have always been told the system is based on scientific analysis, but if the resources are not there to undertake proper scientific and risk-based assessments we will continue to have major incursions like Psa," O'Connor said in a statement.

The report said 46 percent of the country's total kiwifruit crop area was infected with Psa and a recent economic impact report had estimated that Psa would cost the kiwifruit industry between 310 million to 410 million NZ dollars in the next five years, and 740 million to 885 million NZ dollars over the next 15 years.