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Motor-vehicle industry drives retail spending in New Zealand

Retail spending in New Zealand in the December 2014 was driven by the motor-vehicle industry, with retail sales rising 3.4 percent.

“The motor-vehicle industry drove this quarter’s increase, having the largest rises in both the sales volume and value," acting business indicators manager Tehseen Islam said.

The volume of total retail trade sales rose 1.7 percent in the December 2014 quarter. Aside from motor-vehicle and parts retailing, the largest industry movements were in food and beverage services (up 3.0 percent), supermarket and grocery stores (down 1.2 percent).

The volume of sales in core retail (which excludes the vehicle-related industries) rose 1.5 percent.

Statistics New Zealand said Looking at the longer-term picture, the trends for both total retail sales volumes, and values, have generally been rising since mid-2009.

In actual terms, the value of total retail sales was USD20.9 billion in the December 2014 quarter, up 4.7 percent compared with the December 2013 quarter.

This is the first time the total sales value was over the USD20 billion level.