New Zealand's Credit Card Spending Rises In January

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New Zealand's credit card spending rose 0.5% month-on-month in January, led by strong increase in the fuel retailing industry, the Statistics New Zealand said on Wednesday.

"Fuel has been the main contributor to increases in this series since July 2009," Business Statistics Manager Kathy Connolly said. Since September 2009, the retail price of petrol has generally been increasing.

The seasonally adjusted value of electronic card transactions in core retail, which excludes the motor vehicle-related industries, was down just 0.1%. This result reflects flat or falling sales in all core retail industries, the statistical agency said.

Including the non-retail industries, total credit card spending increased 1.1% month-on-month in January, the largest monthly increase since July 2009. Spending in the non-retail industries, which include services such as travel and health, and wholesaling, alone was up 5.1%.

Trends for the value of transactions in the core, retail, and total series have all been increasing since January 2009, the statistical agency said. Latest figures indicate that growth in the core retail series has flattened in recent months, up 1.3% since June 2009. The retail series increased by 0.6% in each of the last four months, which is the fastest rate of growth since December 2007. For the total series, the growth rate has been rising since November 2009, it added.

(Market News Provided by RTTNews)