December trade deficit revised to $499m

New Zealand's December trade deficit was today revised up to $499 million from the provisional early estimate of $493m.

Economists had expected a deficit of $555m for the month.

The trade deficit for 2004 was revised to $4.18 billion from $4.17b.

A trade deficit is not unusual for a December, but this is almost double the average trade deficit as a percentage of exports for the past decade, Statistics New Zealand said today.

Exports in December rose to $2.55 billion from $2.29 billion a year earlier while imports jumped to $3.05 billion from $2.81 billion.

For the year, exports rose to $30.73 billion from $28.4 billion while imports rose to $34.91 billion from $31.78 billion.

There was a seasonally adjusted 7.9 per cent rise in exports in the December quarter from the September 2004 quarter. The rise was accentuated by the unusually low September quarter value.

The main contributor to the rise was the jump in dairy exports. At the end of the dairy season in autumn, tight management of inventories reduced levels compared with the same period in 2003.

This meant lower volumes of dairy products were available for export in the September quarter.

Other significant seasonally adjusted quarterly rises were recorded for fruit, mechanical machinery and equipment, and electrical machinery and equipment.

The main contributor to increased fruit exports was kiwifruit, which had a longer than usual export season following a good growing season. Japan was the main destination for exported kiwifruit in the December 2004 quarter.

- NZPA