第一个好消息:Food prices post largest decline since 1957
New Zealand food prices posted their biggest annual decline since1957 in the year through June, ending a two-year surge that was drivenby increased global commodity costs.
Prices fell 2% in the latest 12 months, even as they rose 1.3% inthe month of June, according to Statistics New Zealand. The declinecomes on the back of a large fall in global commodity food prices. In2007 and 2008 annual food price inflation increased almost 17%.
The 2% annual fall in food prices was driven by three main subgroupsStatistics said. Fruit and vegetable prices fell 9.2%, meat, poultryand fish dropped 3.9% and grocery food eased back 1.4%.
he headline figures disguise the typical June rise in vegetableprices, which increased 15.9% in June compared to May, as winterweather slows growing conditions. Vegetable prices this year are wellbelow the record levels seen in June last year however.
Tomato prices increased 44% in June and lettuce was up 77%, as both products followed their typical seasonal price pattern.
For June 2010, meat, poultry and fish rose 2.7%, with porterhouseand sirloin beef steak prices jumping 14.3% from discounted May levels.The restaurant meals and ready-to-eat food subgroup rose 0.3%.
The non-alcoholic beverages, as well as the grocery food subgroupsboth fell 0.8% in June, with the latter group largely reflecting lowerprices for chocolate-related products.
第二个好消息:Kiwi holds above US71c as Wall Street earnings season begins
The New Zealand dollar held above 71 US cents as Wall Street’ssecond-quarter earnings kicked off with aluminium manufacturer AlcoaInc. beating expectations.
Alcoa posted net earnings of US$136 million, or 13 cents a share, inthe three months through June, beating the forecast 11 cents a share inwhat’s considered the bellwether for the Standard & Poor’s 500reporting season.
The kiwi climbed to 71.08 US cents from 70.88 cents yesterday, andgained to 67.60 on the trade-weighted index of major trading partners’currencies from 67.52. It edged up to 62.98 yen from 62.85 yenyesterday, and was little changed at 81.16 Australian cents from 81.10cents. It traded at 56.41 euro cents from 56.39 cents yesterday, andinched down to 47.26 pence from 47.30 pence.