Trade

Deficit and international debt down, but for the right reasons?

02 Oct 2009

The “good” news is that the current account deficit is down sharply, and that our net international debtor position is slightly less cringe-worthy than in March. But the main reasons for this are the stronger exchange rate, poor demand for imported intermediate goods, and an Aussie bank having to pay its taxes. The current account deficit narrowed drastically in the June 2009 »»

What drives New Zealand Merchandise exports?

22 Apr 2009

This piece is not rocket science. All it does is to quantify what anyone with a bit of economic sense already knows. New Zealand exports are driven by two things, or if we’re nit-picky (as the author is in this piece), three. World prices and world trade volumes (which you could lump together as world trade value) The relative strength of the NZ$. How have our »»

Balance of Payments blowout and the future of speculative investment

03 Apr 2009

The balance of payments experienced a blowout in the year ending December. This was the result of high oil prices, reduced tourism receipts (partly due to a strong NZ$), and divestment from New Zealand as our interest rate differential shrank and investors the world over panicked. Looking forward, oil will no longer have the effect it has had in recent times. The questions are more about what »»

Petrol and interest rates - is there nothing else to discuss?

25 Sep 2008

Fuel once again led a horrific deterioration of the current account deficit in the June quarter. Meanwhile, high interest rates (and the resultant strength of the dollar) pushed up investment income earned by foreigners in New Zealand as well as our imports of services (travel and oil industry-related services). At the same time, imports of capital goods, particularly for our booming oil industry, increased sharply (our application to join »»

Black and white gold lead April merchandise trade

28 May 2008

The most recent available merchandise trade data shows huge spikes in both exports and imports, with both sides of the equation led by oil products. Milk products also played a dominant role on the exports side. Merchandise exports were up 20 percent over the previous year’s figure in April, to $3.8 billion, resulting in a record exports value figure. The usual suspects – Tui oil and milk products – were once again »»

The deficit is down!

01 May 2008

The good news on the balance of payments is that the deficit is down, to $3.1 billion in the December 2007 quarter, from $3.6 billion in the previous quarter on a seasonally-adjusted. Most of this improvement is thanks to rising exports – yes, black and white gold. Extraordinarily, we recorded our first goods surplus in more than four years, with $85 million more goods exported from New Zealand than imported on a »»

June '07 quarter sees modest improvement in balance of payments

21 Sep 2007

The current account deficit for the June 2007 quarter was $3.42bn, down $162m from the March quarter. The deficit for the June year was $13.6bn, down from $14.6bn the previous year. This smaller deficit for the year is mostly the result of strong dairy exports, which have reduced the shortfall in goods and services trade. New Zealand’s net international investment position »»

July '07 merchandise trade deficit highest on record

06 Sep 2007

The month of July was one of records on the merchandise trade side, but the kind of records we would rather avoid. The merchandise overseas trade deficit for the July 2007 year rose to $6.3 billion, up by $300 million since the last edition of BERL Forecasts. This was thanks to the dollar being at an all-time high against major trading partner currencies. The result was the highest ever trade deficit for a July month - $791 »»

Balance of Payments - speculative investment continues to fund deficit

26 Jun 2008

New Zealand’s net international debtor position worsened slightly to $153.2 billion by the end of March 2008. This equates to a debt of around $36,000 for every man, woman and child in New Zealand. The debt position increased by $14 billion in the year (11%), despite the best efforts of our booming oil and dairy exports. The precarious nature of our debt position is highlighted by »»

March '07 balance of payments improves on previous year

06 Sep 2007

The good news is that although the seasonally-adjusted current account deficit in the March 2007 quarter was up slightly on the figure for the December 2006 quarter, it was well down on the figure for the March 2006 quarter. At $3.6 billion, it was an increase of $49 million on the December number, yet a decrease of $521 million over the March 2006 value. Even better news is that over the March year, the deficit was more than $1 »»

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