New Zealand Manufacturing Sales continued to decline for a second quarter in the first three months of 2009 a newly released report shows. The headline -0.9% figure was slightly better than the expected -1.0% number, but still worse than the metric’s contraction of -0.1% in the final period of 2008. Despite the negative outcome, Meat and Dairy sales surged ahead for the period. The 10.9% move came, the largest in at least three years, came during a period in which the New Zealand Dollar had lost considerable value. Since meat and dairy are one of the country’s largest exports, we suspect that demand from abroad may have propped this portion of the figure. The subdued Kiwi made it abundantly cheap for foreigners to purchase these goods and thus probably took advantage of the situation.
