Grocery products lead wholesale trade sales increase

Total wholesale trade sales, after adjusting for seasonal effects, increased 2.8 percent ($550 million) in the March 2011 quarter, Statistics New Zealand said today. This is the sixth consecutive quarterly sales increase and the first time since 2006 that quarterly sales have increased by more than half-a-billion dollars. More than half the increase was due to a rise in grocery products wholesaling.

"The overall picture remains positive, as sales rose in four of the six wholesale industries,” business statistics manager Louise Holmes-Oliver said.

The largest rises were in:

• grocery, liquor, and tobacco products wholesaling, up 5.9 percent ($357 million)
• basic materials wholesaling, up 7.2 percent ($310 million).
• The biggest decrease was in motor vehicle and motor vehicle parts wholesaling, which was down 10.9 percent ($177 million).
• The trend in wholesale trade sales has been steadily rising since the September 2009 quarter, and is up 14.0 percent since then.
• The seasonally adjusted value of stocks was $8.8 billion at the end of March 2011, an increase of 0.2 percent ($13 million) compared with the previous quarter.

Statistics New Zealand assessed the impact of the 22 February Christchurch earthquake on the March 2011 quarter wholesale trade statistics. We are confident that the quality of the results has not been affected. For more information, refer to the Wholesale Trade Survey: March 2011 quarter.

Quarterly wholesale trade statistics are not produced at regional levels. While a small number of surveyed businesses in Christchurch were adversely affected by the 22 February earthquake, we are not able to estimate the overall effect on Christchurch wholesaling.

Dallas Welch (Mrs) 20 June 2011

Acting Government Statistician