Tourism related retail up in October

There was a 10 per cent rise in money spent in cafes and restaurants during October, said Statistics NZ. Photo / Dean Purcell.

An increase in sales by food-related industries was offset by a sales decrease in vehicle-related industries in the full October retail sales report released today.

Statistics New Zealand released the headline numbers last week when it became possible to work them out from electronic card transaction data.

Seasonally adjusted total retail sales were flat in October. This followed a 0.3 per cent increase in the previous month.

A 0.5 per cent increase in core retailing was partly offset by a 1.5 per cent decrease in the four vehicle-related industries.

The largest increases were a 10 per cent rise in cafes and restaurants, a 4.2 per cent increase in accommodation and 2.2 per cent increase in department store sales.

ASB Securities said these increases were in areas typically associated with tourism but given the volatility in monthly data ASB was reluctant to put too much weight on the increases.

There was a 6.7 per cent decrease in clothing and softgoods retailing, a 1.1 per cent decrease in supermarket and grocery sales and a 1.9 per cent decline in automotive fuel retailing.

The rest of the retail industries were little changed.

ASB said clothing sales have been affected by unseasonal weather this year and the housing-related category was yet to show a definitive pick up.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand was likely to feel reassured by the data, as retail spending remained subdued despite the pick up in confidence.

There were some anomalies in October, including that it had five Saturdays.

The total retail sales trend has been rising since February 2009, following a 13-month

period of decline. However, the rate of increase appears to have eased slightly in the latest months.

- NZPA