Despite a $3 billion decline in 2015 dairy exports remain New Zealand’s top earner, but earnings from other industries such as meat and tourism have picked up part of the shortfall according to Statistics New Zealand.
In related news, electrical goods and electronics from China have overtaken cars from Japan and the European Union as New Zealand’s largest import expense.
Key export markets – including China, the United States, and the European Union (EU) are driving the growth of export earnings from meat and travel, which is good news for transport suppliers to those two segments.
Total exports in 2015 rose $1.9 billion from 2014, driven by a $2.3 billion rise in spending by international visitors and a $895 million increase in exports of meat products in 2015.
Spending on personal travel by visitors from China has increased $1.4 billion since 2011, reaching $2.2 billion in 2015. Visitors from Australia spent $1.9 billion on personal travel in 2015.
New Zealand earned $2.5 billion more from exports than it spent on imports during the year ended December 2015.
Total exports of goods and services were $69.3 billion for 2015 while imports totalled $66.9 billion.
For the year ended December 2015, the EU was New Zealand’s largest source of imports, totalling $12.1 billion, followed by Australia ($11.3 billion) and China ($10.4 billion).
New Zealand’s largest import expense during 2015 was electrical machinery and equipment from China.
“The rise in electrical machinery and equipment was mostly due to consumer electronics such as mobile phones,” says Statistics New Zealand senior manager Jason Attewell.
“In recent years, cars from Japan or the EU had been our top import,” he says.
