New Zealand's trade deficit appears to be getting smaller, according to the latest data.

A new report from Stats NZ says imports were down, falling $1.2b to $7.1b compared to October last year.

Kiwibank economist Sabrina Delgado says increased interest rates are restraining demand and causing imports to fall.

"We actually saw that our imports surged during the post-Covid period when we had quite a lot of loose monetary policy and expanded fiscal policy- we saw imports rose off the back of that, now we've got really high interest rates."

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