$15M surplus for balance of payments

Press, 29 May 1981, Page 2

$15M surplus for balance of payments

PA Wellington New Zealand’s balance of payments on current account for the first three months of 1981 showed a surplus of $l5 million, according to the provisional estimate issued yesterday by the Government Statistician (Dr J. H. Darwin). For the March quarter of 1980, the balance was a deficit of $l5O million; in the June quarter, a SI32M deficit; in the September quarter, a $392M deficit; and for the December quarter, a S26OM deficit. The value of exports (f.0.b.) in the March quarter of 1981 was $1507 million. This was SI46M higher (11 per cent) than the value of goods exported from New Zealand in the March, 1980, quarter. However, • the value of the merchandise imported in the this latest quarter, $1235 million (f.o.b. in the exporting countries), was $44 million less (3 per cent) than in the March quarter of last year.

The resulting balance on merchandise trade was a surplus of $273 million, compared with the surplus of $B2 million in the March quarter last year. Earnings from supplying services to the rest of the world in this latest March quarter totalled $387 million, 28 per cent higher .than in the March quarter of 1980. The total cost of the services supplied by the rest of the world to New Zealand during this quarter was $482 million, or 18 per cent more than in the March quarter of last year. The figures for the March, 1981, quarter, together with those for the three previous quarters, provide a preliminary estimate of the balance of payments on current account for the financial year ended March 31, 1981 — a deficit of $770 million for the entire year. In the 1979-80 year, the dificit was $782 million; in 1978-79, $469M; and in 197778, S7I2M.