May 26 (Reuters) - New Zealand's Fonterra posted an 18% rise in nine-month underlying operating profit on Wednesday, helped by strong demand for its dairy products in China and higher milk prices.

The world's largest dairy exporter reported normalised earnings before interests and taxes (EBIT) of NZ$959 million ($692.97 million) for the nine months ended April 30, compared with NZ$815 million a year earlier. ($1 = 1.3839 New Zealand dollars) (Reporting by Anushka Trivedi and Soumyajit Saha in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)