Electricity, dairy price drive up New Zealand producer prices

Rising electricity and dairy prices drove increases in both New Zealand's input and output producer prices in the March quarter, the government statistics agency announced Monday.

Prices received by producers, the output producers price index (PPI), rose 0.9 percent in the March quarter, and the input PPI, the prices of goods and services used by producers, rose 1 percent, according to Statistics New Zealand.

"The higher prices for electricity generation contributed to both the higher input and output PPIs in the latest quarter," prices manager Chris Pike said in a statement.

"This often happens in March quarters, due to spot-market conditions and low lake levels."

In March 2014, the output electricity and gas supply price index rose 14 percent, which contributed more than half of the rise in the output PPI.

The input electricity and gas supply price index was up 20 percent, contributing almost three-quarters of the rise in the input PPI.

In the year ending March, the output electricity and gas supply price index rose 2.8 percent, while that for inputs grew 0.7 percent.

Higher prices for raw milk resulted in a 4-percent increase in prices received by dairy cattle farmers, and a 3.1-percent increase in input prices paid by dairy product manufacturers.

In the year ending March, the prices received by the dairy cattle farming industry increased 47 percent, and the prices paid by the dairy product manufacturing industry increased 39 percent.

In the year to the March quarter, the output PPI was up 4 percent, and the input PPI rose 3.1 percent.