Exports tumbled last month, down 7.5 per cent on June, and the monthly trade deficit blew out to a worse than expected $692 million.
Statistics New Zealand figures show exports were worth $3.7 billion in July.
The trend for exports appears to be falling from high levels earlier in the year, with slumping prices for dairy products and logs in recent months. Seasonally adjusted exports fell 7.5 per cent in July compared with June, Statistics New Zealand said.
The value of dairy products, New Zealand’s top merchandise export sector, fell almost 9 per cent between June and July, seasonally adjusted, after the big dive in GlobalDairyTrade auction prices from peaks seen earlier in the year.
The drop in dairy product exports was worth $105m between June and July.
Dairy exports were down for the second month in a row, reflecting a 4.7 per cent drop in prices and a 4 per cent drop in volumes, Westpac economists said.
There was also a fall in volumes for meat, fruit, seafood and crude oil.
«Export volumes can be choppy from month to month, especially for oil, due to the timing of shipments,» Westpac said.
The trend for milk powder, butter and cheese exports had been falling this year and was now down 17 per cent from the peak at the end of last year, Statistics New Zealand said.
The second-biggest export sector, meat and offal, was down 6.7 per cent between June and July, reversing an almost 9 per cent lift in the previous month.
After heavy falls earlier in the year, seasonally adjusted log exports steadied in July, down just 0.3 per cent on June.
Compared with a year ago, exports of logs and lumber were down $53m from the same month last year, a drop of 16 per cent.
Log prices have slumped after stockpiles built up in China and demand fell away.
The trend for logs and timber is now down about 19 per cent on the peak in October last year.
Seasonally adjusted imports fell 1.8 per cent in July to $4.4b. The drop was in line with a strong New Zealand dollar during the period, making imports cheaper.
The trade balance for July was a deficit of $692m, equal to 19 per cent of exports. That compares with an average surplus of 5.2 per cent of exports over the previous five Julys.
For the year to the end of July, the annual trade surplus was $1.3b, equal to 2.5 per cent of exports.
July exports were down $125m on the same month last year.
«Goods exports decreased over a range of commodities, but the fall was led by pine logs,» Statistics New Zealand international statistics manager Jason Attewell said.
«This is the first fall in exports after 10 months of rises.»
Over the past 10 months, milk powder, butter and cheese values rose between 34 and 84 per cent compared with same month in the previous year. This drove the large increase in total goods exports over that time.
In July, the small rise in milk powder, butter and cheese exports (up 0.9 per cent on a year ago) was offset by larger falls in other commodities.
Source: Stuff