Asia takes growing share of New Zealand commercial services market

WELLINGTON, Feb. 22 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand's foreign trade in commercial services almost doubled in the six years to June 2011, with Asia becoming an increasingly important supplier, the government statistics agency announced Wednesday.

In the year ending June 2011, imports of commercial services from China and Singapore represented 8.1 percent of total commercial service imports, up from 2.9 percent in 2005, driven by a rise in engineering services associated with offshore oil drilling and extraction, according to the Census of International Trade in Services and Royalties, from Statistics New Zealand.

Imports from India represented 1.2 percent of total commercial service imports, compared with 0.3 percent in 2005, driven by a rise in management fees, and information technology consulting and support services.

New Zealand companies exported 4 billion NZ dollars (3.33 billion U.S. dollars) of commercial services in the year to the end of June 2011, up by 1.5 billion NZ dollars from the June 2005 year, when the census was last carried out.

Over the same period, imports of commercial services increased by 2.3 billion NZ dollars, to reach 5.8 billion NZ dollars.

"Companies are buying and selling more services internationally, which is an indicator that New Zealand is becoming a more globalized economy," Statistics New Zealand balance of payments manager John Morris said in a statement.