New Zealand manufacturing sales volumes fell to their lowest point in almost ten years, according to Statistics New Zealand’s ‘Economic Survey of Manufacturing: March 2010 quarter’.
Manufacturing volumes as a whole fell 2.7 per cent, which reverses the rise of 2.7 per cent in the December 2009 quarter and takes the series to its lowest point in almost 10 years.
Though sales for the whole of the manufacturing sector rose 1.3 per cent, meat and dairy product manufacturing fell a huge 10.1 percent.
According to Statistics New Zealand, most of the fall in the latest quarter is attributable to the meat and dairy product manufacturing industry which accounts for over a quarter of manufacturing output.
Excluding the meat and dairy industry, the other manufacturing industries rose 1.3 per cent in volume in the March 2010 quarter.
Five industries showed falls and ten showed rises. The main contributors to the quarterly volume movement were: meat and dairy product manufacturing, down 10.1 per cent; other food manufacturing, down 9.0 per cent; basic metal manufacturing, up 14.3 per cent; and petroleum and industrial chemical manufacturing, up 8.4 per cent.