Band 6+: The two line graphs below show New Zealand import figures from Australia and Japan in the years 1994 - 2004. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

The line graphs show the value of imported goods imported to New Zealand from two different countries, Japan and Australia, over a ten year period.

There appears to be two different trends displayed on the line graphs. The trend for Japan is downward as New Zealand imported goods worth 3 billion NZ$ in 1994 and 2 billion in 2004. On the other hand, figures for Australia showed an upward trend as its goods were the value of 4 billion at the beginning of the period and 7 billion at the end.

However, there is considerable fluctuation for both countries. If we look at imports from Japan we could see that the line graph displays two large peaks in 1997 and 2000 and that between these years New Zealand imported a higher ammount of goods from Japan than Australia. Imports from Australia also fluctuated and dipped twice, however the strong recovery in the second half of the period meant they ended up with goods worth four times the value of those from Japan.

Overall, we can see that imports were far from stable from both countries but that imports from Japan decreased over time and those from Australia increased.