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Nick Brunsdon: Infometrics principal economist on goods exports going up by 19 percent · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk sed be
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  Speaker 2: Now we've got some positive trade news stats. New Zealand
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  Speaker 2: data show that goods exports rose nineteen percent to seven
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  Speaker 2: point six billion dollars in March as compared to the
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  Speaker 2: same time a year ago. The monthly trade balance is
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  Speaker 2: a surplus of nine hundred and seventy million dollars, which
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  Speaker 2: came higher than expected. And Inframetrics principal economist Nick Brunsden
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  Speaker 2: is with us, Hey, Nick, good here, you don't I'm
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  Speaker 2: very well thank You know what's driven it higher than
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  Speaker 2: we expected?
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  Speaker 3: A range of things in terms of on the product size.
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  Speaker 4: Dairy prices are a lot better, so you know, a
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  Speaker 4: basic boost, and dairy prices account for about.
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  Speaker 3: Half of that. The prices are good across all sorts
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  Speaker 3: of things that we export.
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  Speaker 4: Chevy fruit prices are pretty good, Beef prices are holding up,
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  Speaker 4: Hie Land recovering, so that's already helped.
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  Speaker 2: Is there any indication that we are managing to diversify
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  Speaker 2: our trade a little bit away from China, which is
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  Speaker 2: what we've been trying to do for a while.
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  Speaker 3: There is a little bit. Yep.
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  Speaker 4: So about half of our trade goes to the big
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  Speaker 4: three China, Australia and the US. Over the past year
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  Speaker 4: we had a more than twenty percent increase to some
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  Speaker 4: of our key partners, so the Netherlands, UK, Indonesia and Canada.
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  Speaker 3: So that's really good. But I think they've moved the
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  Speaker 3: dial from sort of fifty percent to fifty two percent.
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  Speaker 3: So good stuff.
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  Speaker 4: But you know we're going to need a lot more
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  Speaker 4: a lot more of that diversification in the future.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fair point. Well, how the Trump tariff's going
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  Speaker 2: to change what we're seeing.
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  Speaker 3: Here directly for US.
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  Speaker 4: I mean it's a hit, you know. I think it's
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  Speaker 4: something at nine hundred million dollars for New Zealand. The
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  Speaker 4: bigger hit will come sort of indirectly through our trading partners.
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  Speaker 3: You know.
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  Speaker 4: Obviously China is the largest importer of our goods and
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  Speaker 4: they're looking at one hundred and twenty five percent or
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  Speaker 4: depending on what day of the week.
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  Speaker 3: It is a pretty big terror from the US.
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  Speaker 4: So ultimately, if those teriffs make China poorer, they won't
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  Speaker 4: be buying our great stuff.
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  Speaker 1: Nick.
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  Speaker 2: Look, the thing is, I mean, we're obviously going to
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  Speaker 2: look at this and say, Yay, things are finally on
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  Speaker 2: the up and and everything is looking good. But the
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  Speaker 2: fact is March is always a little bit better as
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  Speaker 2: a month for us as a country. Would we be
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  Speaker 2: should we be seeing this as the start of a
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  Speaker 2: trend with just a monthly March blip.
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  Speaker 4: So that even on an annual basis, the numbers are
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  Speaker 4: pretty good. So we had a seven percent increase in
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  Speaker 4: the year to March over.
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  Speaker 3: The whole year, so that's good.
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  Speaker 4: But yeah, the bigger picture is that global uncertainty that
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  Speaker 4: we're seeing around around tariffs, around and sort of that
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  Speaker 4: knock onto investment. We think that will sort of push
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  Speaker 4: out New Zealand's recovery by a couple of years. It's
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  Speaker 4: just it's not the kind of environment where anyone really
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  Speaker 4: wants to invest. Everyone's kind of just sitting on the sidelines,
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  Speaker 4: and that's going to push down growth. Brilliant stuff.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, Nick, thank you very much, really appreciate Nick Brunsdon,
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  Speaker 2: Infametrix Principal Economist.
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