After adjusting for seasonal effects and removing price changes, meat and dairy product manufacturing volumes fell 7.8 per cent.

"The fall in meat and dairy sales volumes followed a similar fall in the previous quarter," business indicators manager Craig Liken said. "In contrast, sales values were up $77 million, mainly reflecting a rise in dairy product prices."

Overseas Trade Indexes reported export dairy volumes fell 11 per cent in the March 2017 quarter, while meat export volumes rose 3.2 per cent.

The volume of total manufacturing sales fell 0.3 per cent in the March 2017 quarter, after a 2.0 per cent fall in the December 2016 quarter.

Excluding meat and dairy, the manufacturing sales volume rose 1.7 per cent, following a fall in the December quarter. Sales rose for seven of the 12 other manufacturing industries.

The main industry movements were in:

• petroleum and coal product manufacturing (which is not seasonally adjusted), up 5.7 per cent.
• chemical, polymer, and rubber product manufacturing, up 7.0 per cent.

The trend for the total manufacturing sales volume, which gives a longer-term picture of movements, has been mainly rising since mid-2013 but now appears to be easing.

The actual volume of total manufacturing sales was up 0.2 per cent on the March 2016 quarter. When price changes are included, the value of manufacturing sales was $25.7 billion in the March 2017 quarter, up $1.5 billion (6.2 per cent) from the March 2016 quarter.