Petroleum Drives Wholesale Trade Growth

6 June 2006

Petroleum Drives Wholesale Trade Growth

Petroleum product sales led the 1.9 percent increase in seasonally adjusted wholesale trade sales for the March 2006 quarter, Statistics New Zealand said today. Close to half of this increase came from petroleum product wholesaling, which was up 11.6 percent for the quarter. The second largest increase was in food and grocery products wholesaling (up 2.5 percent). These increases were partly offset by decreases in primary product food wholesaling (down 6.3 percent), and metal and mineral wholesaling (down 7.9 percent).

The sales trend for the petroleum product wholesaling industry has risen 70.3 percent since the September 2003 quarter.

The total sales trend has generally been increasing since the June 2003 quarter. Seasonally adjusted wholesale stocks for the March 2006 quarter were 1.5 percent higher than for the December 2005 quarter.

Geoff Bascand

Acting Government Statistician

ENDS

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