Rising demand from China helped to offset falling dairy prices and keep New Zealand's goods trade in surplus last month, the government statistics agency said Wednesday.
Goods exports rose by 4 percent year on year in April to 4.3 billion NZ dollars (2.91 billion U.S. dollars), led by a 16-percent, or 59 million NZ dollars (39. 9 million U.S. dollars), increase in the value of fruit exports, while the value of dairy exports fell by a similar amount, according to Statistics New Zealand.
China's Taiwan became New Zealand's top destination for apples in April, beating out the United States and Britain, while the quantity of gold kiwifruit exports to the Chinese mainland rose by 61 percent. Goods exports to China were up 82 million NZ dollars (55.46 million U.S. dollars), or 11 percent, led by a rise in milk powder and other dairy products.
New Zealand's total dairy exports fell 6.7 percent year on year to 818 million NZ dollars (553.29 million U.S. dollars) in April. "Rises in exports of our smaller commodities, such as fruit, are offsetting the falls in the dairy sector," senior manager Nicola Growden said in a statement.
The total value of goods imported in April was up 1.5 percent to 4 billion NZ dollars (2.7 billion U.S. dollars), driven by a lower New Zealand dollar and greater imports of consumption goods.
New Zealand had a goods trade surplus of 292 million NZ dollars (197.51 million U.S. dollars), or 6.8 percent of exports, last month, which compared with an average surplus of 11 percent of exports for the previous five April months.
There was an annual trade deficit of 3.7 billion NZ dollars (2. 5 billion U.S. dollars), following an annual trade deficit of 3.8 billion NZ dollars (2.57 billion U.S. dollars) in March.
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