WELLINGTON, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- Rebounding dairy prices have driven up New Zealand's producer output and producer input prices in the December 2016 quarter, the government statistics agency said Monday.
Producer output prices rose 1.5 percent in the December quarter, mainly influenced by a 14-percent rise in prices received by dairy manufacturers and a 13-percent rise in prices received by dairy farmers, according to Statistics New Zealand.
Prices received by producers in the mining and construction industries were also up, by 13 percent and 1.6 percent respectively, business prices manager Sarah Williams said in a statement.
Producer input prices rose 1 percent, mainly influenced by an 11-percent rise in prices paid by dairy manufacturers.
Petrol prices were up 5.7 percent and diesel prices were up 8.5 percent, also contributing to higher input prices paid by producers across many industries.
Some relief came from a 13-percent drop in electricity prices paid by producers.
Last year, producer output prices increased 2.5 percent, and producer input prices increased 2.3 percent.
The capital goods price index increased 3.4 percent in the year, influenced by civil construction (up 3.1 percent), and the construction of residential buildings (up 6 percent) and non-residential buildings (up 5.6 percent).
