Clothes buying leads rise in New Zealand electronic card spending

New Zealanders stepped up shopping on their credit and debit cards last month, with spending on apparel leading the increase as winter took hold, the government's statistics agency said Tuesday.

Retail spending using electronic cards rose 5.6 percent year on year to 4.6 billion NZ dollars (30.13 billion U.S. dollars) in July, according to Statistics New Zealand.

Retail spending was up 0.4 percent from June 2015, following a 0.5-percent rise in June.

"All six retail industries had higher sales this month," business indicators manager Neil Kelly said.

"Apparel had the largest increase, while the other five industries rose modestly though two of these were almost unchanged."

Core retail spending, which excludes the vehicle-related industries, gained 0.5 percent in July, following a 0.1-percent rise in June.