Petrol pushes up wholesale trade sales

Petrol sales led the 1.9 per cent increase in seasonally adjusted wholesale trade sales in the March quarter, Statistics New Zealand said yesterday.

Close to half of this increase came from petroleum product wholesaling, which was up 11.6 per cent for the quarter. The second largest increase was in food and grocery products wholesaling (up 2.5 per cent).

These increases were partly offset by decreases in primary product food wholesaling (down 6.3 per cent), and metal and mineral wholesaling (down 7.9 per cent).

The total sales trend has generally been increasing since the June 2003 quarter.