INCREASES in the sales of motor vehicles and hardware materials contributed to the $970 million total wholesale and retail trade sales recorded during the March quarter of 2017.
This was highlighted in the Wholesale and Retail Trade Statistics for the March Quarter 2017 released by the Fiji Bureau of Statistics last week.
The survey covers registered businesses engaged in wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motor cycles that account for 80 per cent of total turnover in this business sector.
The statistics, which also provides us with a short-term indicator of the industry’s performance, revealed that total sales had increased by 4.4 per cent ($41.0m) when compared with the March quarter of 2016.
It however declined by 2.0 per cent ($20.3m) when compared with the December quarter of 2016, attributed to the decrease in the sale of non-specialised stores with food, beverages or tobacco and hardware materials.
A further breakdown indicates that the total sales of food and non-alcoholic beverages and tobacco and alcoholic beverages and automotive fuel rose by 2.5 per cent ($14.2m) when compared with the March quarter of 2016.
Sales of automotive fuel rose by 0.7 per cent ($2.2m) while sales of food, non-alcoholic beverages, tobacco and alcoholic beverages however declined by 5.3 per cent ($14.9m) when compared with the December quarter of 2016.
Total sales of hardware, paints and glass and motor vehicles rose by 12.4 per cent ($15.9m) when compared with the March quarter of 2016.
Sales of motor vehicles rose by 0.9 per cent ($0.6m) while sales of hardware, paints and glass fell by 3.0 per cent ($2.5m) when compared with the December quarter of 2016.
