KEY POINTS:
New Zealand turned in a worse than expected trade performance in March, with a deficit of $50 million in the trade balance, Statistics New Zealand (SNZ) figures show.
It was only the second March deficit recorded in the past decade, the other being in March 2005. During the 10-year period, the average balance for March months was a surplus of $100 million.
The median forecast of economists in a Reuters poll had been for a surplus of $395 million for March 2008.
The latest figure took the trade deficit for the March year to $4.53 billion, or 11.9 per cent of exports. That was worse than the $4.4 billion deficit in the February year but better than the $4.8 billion in January.
The cost of imports rose 7.1 per cent, from a year earlier, to $3.49b in March, while export revenue was up 3.7 per cent to $3.44b
For the seventh consecutive month, the increase in exports from a year earlier was led by the same two commodity groups - milk powder, butter and cheese, and crude oil, which rose a combined $262m, SNZ said.
But crude oil was at its lowest value in eight months, since the first full month of production from the Tui oilfield.
For all other commodity groups, there was a 5.2 per cent decrease from March 2007, with 28 out of the top 40 commodities down from the same month of the previous year.
For the March quarter, the seasonally adjusted value of exports at $10.4b was down 1.4 per cent, or $150m, from the record high of the previous quarter, SNZ said.
Despite that, the March 2008 quarter was still 14.1 per cent higher than the next highest quarterly value which was recorded in September 2006.
The latest quarter was only the second time that exports had exceeded $10b, and only the third quarter to exceed $9b.
Crude oil exports were down 21.2 per cent, or $154m, from the December quarter, while seasonally adjusted fruit exports were down 20.4 per cent, or $83m, largely driven by a decrease in kiwifruit.
Fruit exports were strongly seasonal, with the December and March quarters usually the smallest for fruit exports, so seasonally adjusted movements for those quarters were calculated from a smaller, and therefore more variable, base, SNZ said.
During the quarter, milk powder, butter and cheese exports rose 7.2 per cent, or $171m, with meat and edible offal up 5.9 per cent, or $66m. For both commodity groups, the quarterly increase was the third in a row.
The seasonally adjusted value of imports for the March quarter rose 0.4 per cent to $11.2b, only the second time above that level.
The main rise was in crude oil imports, which increased 34.9 per cent, or $276m, to reach a record quarterly value.
Transport and equipment imports were down 36 per cent, or $227m, in the March quarter, mainly due to a large aircraft having been imported in the December quarter, SNZ said.
Machinery and plant imports dropped 2.5 per cent, or $44m, while consumption goods imports were down 1.9 per cent, or $50m.
The New Zealand dollar fell around a third of a cent against the greenback after the data was published, to around US78.20c within about half an hour, but then started recovering and by late morning was about US78.35c.
- NZPA
