ICT industry continues to grow

Total sales of goods and services from New Zealand's information and communication technology (ICT) industry increased 3 percent to $19.3 billion in the 2008 financial year, Statistics New Zealand said today. This was similar to the growth rate in sales of ICT goods and services reported the previous year.

The top two commodities for ICT sales were telecommunication and program distribution services with $5,875 million and computer and related equipment with $3,465 million.

Domestic sales of ICT goods and services increased 4 percent to $17.9 billion in 2008. Export sales of ICT goods and services decreased 8 percent to $1.4 billion. The ICT commodity with the largest export sales was electronic components with $281 million.

The survey asked businesses in the ICT industry about barriers to their business growth. The most commonly reported barrier was strength of competition, reported by 29 percent of businesses in 2008. Strength of competition was also the most commonly reported barrier in 2007.

Data from the ICT Supply Survey: 2007/08 will be included in the OECD Science, Technology and Industry scoreboard (www.oecd.org/sti/scoreboard) which will be updated later in 2009.