Trade surplus well above expectations

New Zealand has posted another healthy trade surplus of $293 million for June, well up on forecasts of $63 million.

Merchandise trade figures released today also show the country's trade surplus for the June year at a preliminary $459 million, compared to average market expectations of $217 million.

Exports for the June month outweighed imports by $290 million. An estimated $2.63 billion worth of exports left the country last month, almost bang on forecasts of $2.67 billion, while June month imports were $2.34 billion, lower than the expected $2.6 billion.

Statistics New Zealand said the imports trend had shown little change in the last four months. On a seasonally adjusted basis, imports had increased in value by 0.5 per cent in the June quarter, compared with the previous quarter, which rose 1.4 per cent.

Consumption goods, petrol and aviation gas, capital goods and intermediate goods had all contributed to the increase, offset partially by a drop in car imports.

There had been no individual import items worth more than $100 million (such as large aircraft or ships) since November 2000.

The seasonally adjusted number of imports increased 2.9 per cent in the June quarter, following a 5.8 per cent in the March quarter.

The department noted that during the month of June the New Zealand dollar gained 4.2 per cent on a trade weighted basis, and was 13.1 per cent higher than June 2001.

Over the quarter, the dollar was 5.8 per cent higher than the previous quarter and 9.8 per cent up on the same period last year.

Provision import figures for May were updated to $2.596 billion, from $2.604 million. The revision, a regular practice for Statistics NZ, means the merchandise trade balance changes from a surplus of $470 million to $478 million.

Export values are not updated until August.

- NZPA