New Zealand CPI Slides 0.3% On Quarter In Q1
20 April 2015 - 9:14AM
RTTF1
Consumer prices in New Zealand dipped 0.3 percent on quarter in
the first quarter of 2015, Statistics New Zealand said on
Monday.
That missed forecasts for a decline of 0.2 percent, which would
have been unchanged from the previous three months.
The last time the CPI showed two consecutive quarterly falls was
in the December 1998 and March 1999 quarters, the bureau said.
"The fall in the March quarter CPI, which last happened in 2001,
was caused by an 11 percent fall in petrol prices. Without petrol,
the CPI rose 0.3 percent," prices manager Chris Pike said.
The average price of a liter of 91 octane petrol in the March
2015 quarter was NZ$1.79, compared with NZ$2.00 in the previous
quarter. By the end of the March quarter, petrol pump prices were
1.8 percent above the average price for the quarter.
If petrol pump prices stay at their 17 April level for the
remainder of the June 2015 quarter, petrol will have an upward
contribution to the CPI for the June quarter, the bureau noted.
Cigarette and tobacco prices rose 12 percent in the latest
quarter, following an 11 percent rise in excise duty in January.
The CPI less cigarettes and tobacco fell 0.7 percent. The average
price of a pack of 25 cigarettes was about NZ$26.40 in the March
2015 quarter, compared with NZ$23.30 in the previous quarter.
Housing rentals rose 0.8 percent, with Canterbury up 1.2 percent
and Auckland up 0.8 percent. Prices for newly built houses
excluding land rose 0.8 percent nationally, with Auckland up 0.7
percent.
On a yearly basis, consumer prices moved up 0.1 percent - also
missing expectations for a gain of 0.2 percent, and down sharply
from the 0.8 increase in Q4.
This is the smallest annual movement since the September 1999
quarter, when prices decreased 0.5 percent over the year, the
bureau said.
The prices of tradable goods and services (which face foreign
competition) decreased 2.8 percent in the year, with lower prices
for petrol (down 15 percent) and for audio-visual and computing
equipment (down 13 percent). Tradable prices are now at their
lowest level since the June 2009 quarter, despite petrol prices now
being 12 percent higher than they were in that quarter.
Non-tradable goods and services increased 2.3 percent, the
lowest annual increase since the September 2012 quarter. The main
contributor was cigarettes and tobacco prices (up 14 percent),
influenced by the increase in excise duty in January 2015. Housing
and household utility prices were up 3.0 percent in the year, with
higher prices for newly built houses excluding land (up 5.0
percent), housing rentals (up 2.3 percent), and electricity (up 3.6
percent).
Excluding cigarettes and tobacco, the annual CPI decreased 0.2
percent; excluding petrol, the CPI increased 1.0 percent over the
year.
Also on Monday, the service sector in New Zealand continued to
pick up steam in March, the latest survey from Business NZ
revealed, with a PMI score of 57.6.
That's up sharply from the upwardly revised 56.0 in February
(originally 55.6), and it moves further above the boom-or-bust
level of 50 that separates expansion from contraction.
Among the individual components of the survey, the sub-index for
sales remained above 60 for the third straight month, while the
employment component also moved sharply higher.