New Zealand's merchandise terms of trade index fell by 0.3 per cent in the June quarter, confounding expectations of a 1.2 per cent rise, Statistics New Zealand says.
A fall in the terms of trade means fewer imports can be paid for by a fixed quantity of exports.
The total merchandise exports price index rose by 1.9 per cent, while the import price index rose 2.2 per cent over the quarter.
Economists polled by Reuters expected export prices to rise an average 3.7 per cent compared with the March quarter and the import price index to rise 2.5 per cent.
The depreciation of the New Zealand dollar - as measured by the trade-weighted index - which fell by 1.5 per cent in the June 2001 quarter, contributed to the increases in export and import prices.
Lower forestry product and fruit and vegetable export prices bucked the trend.
Yesterday's figure means merchandise terms of trade rose by 5.8 per cent for the year ended June 2001, against a 0.2 per cent rise in the June 2000 year.
Annually, dairy product exports recorded the biggest increase at 33.3 per cent, following a 4.6 per cent fall a year earlier.
Merchandise export volumes had a seasonally adjusted rise of 3.2 per cent in the June quarter, with increased volumes recorded for most of the main export commodities.
Merchandise import volumes rose by a seasonally adjusted 3.2 per cent. The volume of consumption goods imported rose 0.8 per cent and intermediate goods - including crude oil for further processing - rose 0.2 per cent.
The volatile capital goods volume index rose 19.4 per cent, following a fall of 20.1 per cent in the previous quarter.
- NZPA
Merchandise trade index falls
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.