WELLINGTON (Reuters) - New Zealand's terms of trade reached a record high in the fourth quarter of 2017 as record prices for lamb and butter exports offset a jump in the price of oil, the country's main import, official data showed on Thursday.
The terms of trade, which are a measure of the country's international purchasing power, rose 0.8 percent in the three months to the end of December, a little slower than the previous quarter's 1.3 percent, Statistics New Zealand said.
"New Zealand’s terms of trade hit a new all-time high...as broad-based export commodity price strength continued to support," said Phil Borkin, senior economist at ANZ Bank.
"Admittedly, the index is probably as good as it gets for now, although we expect it to stay at a historically strong level," he added.
Economists had been expecting the index to show a 0.2 percent fall, with export prices rising 4.2 percent and imports up 3.5 percent, according to a Reuters poll.
Export prices instead surged 4.9 percent, led by prices for lamb, which jumped 12 percent, and butter, which rose 11 percent.
Import prices rose 4 percent, driven by a jump in global crude oil prices.
New Zealand's dollar <NZD=D4> was largely unchanged after the data was published, hovering just above a three-week trough at $0.7206, after being knocked down in recent days by the rallying U.S. dollar.
(Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by Eric Meijer)
