The severe drought that hit New Zealand over the southern summer has helped widen the country' s current account deficit, the government statistics agency announced Wednesday.

The current account deficit the measure of how much more New Zealand spends than it earns from the rest of the world was 2.2 billion NZ dollars (1.81 billion U.S. dollars) in the quarter to the end of June, according to Statistics New Zealand.

This was up 100 million NZ dollars from the previous quarter due to a fall in goods exports.

"This quarter we earned less from our dairy exports, due to the dry weather affecting production earlier in the year," balance of payments manager Jason Attewell said in a statement.

For the year ended June, New Zealand's current account deficit narrowed to 9.1 billion NZ dollars, or 4.3 percent of GDP, down from 4.5 percent of GDP in the year to the end of March, due to a fall in profits earned by foreign-owned companies in New Zealand.

At the end of June, New Zealand's net international liability position was 151.3 billion NZ dollars, or 71.1 percent of GDP, compared with 151.6 billion NZ dollars at the end of March.

"While New Zealand's net international investment position remained flat over the June quarter, within that, government debt to the rest of the world fell," Attewell said.

Net government debt to the rest of the world fell by 4.5 billion NZ dollars to 7.8 billion NZ dollars, or 3.7 percent of GDP. Endi

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