Import fall forecast

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33964, 3 October 1975, Page 3

Import fall forecast

(ti.Z. Press Association)

WELLINGTON, Oct. 2

Payments for private imports for the 121 months ending February, 1976, arel likely to drop' 14 per cent com-' ' pared with the previous correspondi ing year, according; to the Government Statistician (Mr E. A. Harris) today.

Payments for the period ending, February', 1975, were $2237m. Mr Harris said the privateimports estimate was based on import payments to the end of August, as released by the Reserve Bank, and projections based on the orders-and-payments survey for the remaining six months. The survey indicted that private imports payment would average sl46m a month from Spetember to November, 1975, and SI 42 m a month from December. 1975, to February, 1976. Corresponding averages of payments a year earlier were s2oom and slBlm respectively. Orders placed overseas by surveyed firms during the six months ended August vere 9.2 per cent less in value than for the six months ended August, 1974. Payments were down 4.8 per cent. Allowance was not made in the projections for the currency devaluation of 15 per cent on August lO, Mr Harris said.

According to other senior Government sources, September , balance-of-trade figures will show a deficit when they are officially released in about a fortnight. iThe sources said today that. ; the Government had' sacrificed any chance of a surplus for September because it was decided to buy up and stockpile oil i before the . international | price rise last week. | The Government has given \ no indication of what the over-all current-account deficit for last month will be, but it is' believed the figure will be about s7om.

A $2.7m trade surplus reported in August was the first monthly surplus for more than two years.