KEY POINTS:
Retail sales in January rose a faster than expected 0.5 per cent on a seasonally adjusted basis, on the back of a surge in the takeaway food industry, Statistics New Zealand said today.
Economists on average had forecast a 0.2 per cent rise.
Actual retail sales were 6.9 per cent ahead of sales in January 2006.
Seasonally adjusted sales excluding motor vehicles were up 1.0 per cent in the month compared with static sales in December.
Sales were affected by a 4.2 per cent fall in petrol sales, mainly due to falling prices.
Half of the 24 retailing industries had increased sales in January, while the remaining half recorded decreases.
Department stores, cafes and restaurants had the largest rises, while petrol sellers and supermarket and grocery stores had the largest falls for the month.
Sales for four of the five food-related industries (supermarket and grocery stores, fresh produce retailing, other food retailing, and cafes and restaurants) have been trending downwards for the past three to five months.
The trend for takeaway food retailing has been increasing steadily for the past nine months.
This continues a longer-term sales trend in takeaway food retailing, which has increased by 88 per cent since mid 2002.
The remaining four food-related industries have each increased by less than half this amount during the same period.
Regionally, Wellington and Auckland had the largest increases in seasonally adjusted sales, while Waikato and the remainder of the North Island had decreases.
- NZPA
