New Zealand's gross domestic product expanded 0.3 percent in the first quarter of 2013 compared to the previous three months, Statistics New Zealand said on Thursday.
That was shy of forecasts for an increase of 0.5 percent following the 1.5 percent gain in the fourth quarter of 2012.
"The Canterbury rebuild boosted activity for construction and related services," GDP project manager Jason Attewell said. "The rest of the economy was a mixed bag, but we are coming off very strong growth in the previous quarter."
By industry, business services climbed 3.9 percent, driven by architectural and engineering services in Canterbury and Auckland. Activity related to the census, which was held in March, is also included in this industry.
Also, construction jumped 5.5 percent, due to residential building and associated construction services activity in Canterbury, the bureau said.
Partly offsetting these increases were declines in agriculture (down 4.7 percent), due to dry weather in the quarter, which meant that dairy stock were dried off early resulting in lower milk production.
Also, information media and telecommunications were down 3.1 percent, due to declines in call minutes between December and March.
"The impact of the drought showed up as expected, with lower milk production and higher slaughter numbers for the first three months of 2013," Attewell said. "We expect the drought will impact on the economy for several quarters, as lower herd numbers and conception rates will affect future production."
For the year ended in March, New Zealand's GDP expanded 2.5 percent - in line with forecasts following the upwardly revised 3.2 percent gain in the previous three months (originally 3.0 percent).
The expenditure measure of GDP was also up 0.3 percent in Q1.
Among those components, household expenditure - which measures the volume of goods and services consumed by households - gained 0.4 percent. This has not fallen since the March 2009 quarter, and has grown 10.1 percent over that time.
Investment in fixed assets rose 0.3 percent, with a rise in residential building partly offset by a fall in plant and machinery investment.
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