Trade balance beats market expectations

April's $578 million trade surplus was ahead of market expectations and was part of a good news day for New Zealand along with Fonterra's increased payout forecast.

After a rough December quarter, New Zealand's merchandise exports looked to be rebounding well this year and imports appeared to be maintaining their momentum.

BNZ senior economist Craig Ebert said exports increased by nearly 10% on year-ago levels while the market was looking for an annual gain of less than 2%.

Prices for New Zealand's main commodity exports in April were up 20.5% on the corresponding month last year, according to the ANZ indices.

''While this might be a peak, we don't expect this annual rate of inflation to subside much, if at all, over coming months. So we should continue to see some good export figures on the back of this.''

April's merchandise imports were 4% higher on an annual comparison. There was a big rebound in oil imports in April but even excluding oil, imports were up 3.2% annually.

Separately, Fonterra announced its first milk price forecast for 2017-18 was $6.50 per kg/ms.

 

Add a Comment