The volume of New Zealand manufacturing sales rose by 0.7 percent in the quarter ending March, despite a fall in the country's pillar industry of meat and dairy products, the government statistics agency announced Monday.

"The main contributor to this quarter's increase was the metal product manufacturing industry," Statistics New Zealand industry and labor statistics manager Blair Cardno said in a statement.

"However, despite a 7-percent increase, this industry is still trending below levels of three to four years ago."

The rise in the volume of sales for the metal product manufacturing industry followed a 3 percent rise in the previous quarter, and was at its highest level since December 2008, said a commentary to the agency's Economic Survey of Manufacturing.

The sales value of metal product manufacturing also rose, increasing 142 million NZ dollars (110.29 million U.S. dollars) or 6.1 percent.

The volume of sales for the meat and dairy product manufacturing industry fell 0.9 percent in the March quarter, the third fall in the latest year.

The value of meat and dairy product sales fell 666 million NZ dollars, or 9.1 percent, to 6.7 billion NZ dollars for the quarter, the largest quarterly fall since June 2009.

The fall in value was mainly driven by falls in the price of manufactured meat products and manufactured dairy products, which decreased 4.3 and 5.8 percent, respectively, said the commentary.

The trend indicated that the volume of meat and dairy product manufacturing had started to rise.

Half of the other 12 manufacturing industries also recorded increases in the March quarter.

The trend for the manufacturing sales volume, which gives a longer-term picture of movements, indicated manufacturing volumes had been fluctuating around the same level for three years, but the current levels were about 8 percent lower than four years ago.