Dairy and meat products lead manufacturing fall

A fall in dairy and meat products pushed overall manufacturing sales down for the September 2018 quarter, Stats NZ said today.

After adjusting for seasonal effects, the volume of total manufacturing sales fell 1.6 percent in the September 2018 quarter. This fall was led by a 6.7 percent decrease in meat and dairy product manufacturing.

“Most meat and dairy products in New Zealand are exported and occasionally, the timing of exports, price changes, and exchange rates can affect manufacturing sales,” manufacturing statistics manager Sue Chapman said.

This is the second consecutive fall in manufacturing sales volumes and follows the 1.7 percent fall in the June 2018 quarter.

Sales volumes for 7 of the 13 industries fell in the September 2018 quarter. The largest decreases were in meat and dairy products (down 6.7 percent), and transport equipment, machinery and equipment (down 2.5 percent).

The only notable increase came from the chemical, polymer, and rubber products industry (up 7.0 percent).

“The increase in the chemicals industry rebounded on a fall in the June quarter, when an unscheduled outage at the processing plant restricted methanol production,” Ms Chapman said.

Manufacturing sales values up 2 percent

In current prices, sales values for the September 2018 quarter rose 2.0 percent ($575 million) when compared with the June 2018 quarter.

The chemical, polymer, and rubber products industry recorded its largest value rise in the series, up 9.4 percent ($224 million).

With price effects included, the actual total value of manufacturing sales was $26.9 billion in the September 2018 quarter, up $1.8 billion from the September 2017 quarter.

© Scoop Media