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Dairy prices hold down New Zealand's terms of trade

Xinhua, March 2, 2015 Adjust font size:

Falling dairy prices continued to drag down New Zealand's merchandise terms of trade in the quarter to the end of December 2014, the government statistics agency announced on Monday.

The terms of trade the measure of the quantity of imported goods that can be bought for a set amount of exports fell for the second quarter running following rises over six straight quarters, according to Statistics New Zealand.

The fall of 1.9 percent came after a 4.4-percent drop in the September quarter.

Export volumes rose 1.5 percent in the December quarter, while the price of exported goods fell 1.8 percent, both led by dairy products.

Excluding dairy, export prices rose about 4.9 percent, led by higher meat and forestry prices.

"Dairy prices fell 15 percent in the December quarter," prices manager Chris Pike said in a statement.

"They are now 28 percent below a recent peak in the March 2014 quarter, and are at their lowest level since early 2013."

Dairy export values fell 9.6 percent, while volumes rose 2.7 percent.

Total import volumes rose 1.6 percent, led by intermediate goods, while imported goods prices were up 0.2 percent. Endi