Trade Surplus Confirmed

Overseas Merchandise Trade (Exports): January 2001

The updated trade surplus for January 2001 is $108 million, according to latest figures released by Statistics New Zealand. This is 4.6 per cent of the value of exports for the month. Surpluses, averaging 3.1 per cent of exports, have occurred in seven of the past 10 January months.

Merchandise exports for January 2001 have been updated to $2,336 million. This is close to the early estimate of $2,330 million released on 28 February 2001. Merchandise imports for January 2001 were $2,229 million.

The updated value of merchandise exports for the year ended January 2001 is $29,757 million, up 25.2 per cent from the previous January year. Our top three export markets, Australia, the United States of America and Japan, contributed 48.1 per cent of the annual growth.

The commodities contributing the most to annual growth in exports were: milk powder, butter and cheese; meat and edible offal; and logs, wood and wood articles. These were followed by: casein and caseinates; aluminium and aluminium articles; and electrical machinery. The combined annual increase from these six commodities was $3,162 million, which accounted for 52.8 per cent of the total annual increase for exports.

The updated merchandise trade balance for the year ended January 2001 is a deficit of $1,437 million. This compares with a deficit for the previous January year of $3,319 million (which included $631 million for the frigate HMNZS Te Mana).

Overseas merchandise trade statistics are provisional to allow for the inclusion of new and amended information.

Brian Pink GOVERNMENT STATISTICIAN

© Scoop Media