$84m deficit for month

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 34031, 20 December 1975, Page 7

$84m deficit for month

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON. New Zealand’s current account recorded a deficit of $B4 million in November, compared with deficits of $6B million in October and $lll million in September, according to the Reserve Bank. Export receipts totalled $l6l million and import payments $235 million. There was a net capital inflow of $l6B million during the month. Official capital transactions included drawings under the International Monetary Fund’s oil facility ($37 million), proceeds of a Dutch loan ($3l million), and the reimbursement by the United States banks to the Government of credit drawings arranged to finance Government imports ($2O million). The current account deficit in the latest three months ($263 million) was identical to that recorded in the three months to November, 1974.

However, compared with that period last year, the deficit on trade transactions declined from $212 million to $199 million, while that on net non-merchandise (“invisible”) payments advanced from $52 million to $64 million. Comparisons of individual items between 1974 and 1975 are, of course, affected by exchange rate movements between the two periods. Export receipts, $498 million, were 19 per cent higher than in the three months to November, 1974, improvements were recorded in most export items, the most notable being wool, butter, cheese and manufactured exports. Total import payments were $698 million, a rise of 11 per cent over the comparable period last year.

A rise in payments for official debt interest accounted for the widening deficit on “invisible” transactions. Improved transport and travel earnings compensated for other increased “invisible” payments, notably for freight on exports. The net capital inflow in the latest three months comprised I.M.F. drawings on $37 million, other net official borrowing, $ll6 million, and net private capital receipts of $3B million.