WELLINGTON, May 17 (Xinhua) -- A fall in electricity generation prices from unusually high levels late last year mainly influenced the fall in both input and output producers' prices in the March 2019 quarter, New Zealand's statistics department Stats NZ said on Friday.

The overall prices that producers received for the goods and services they produced, or output PPI, fell 0.5 percent in the March 2019 quarter. The prices that producers paid for the inputs they used, or input PPI, fell 0.9 percent, Stats NZ said, adding that both output and input price indexes fell for the first time since the March 2016 quarter.

Prices paid by electricity and gas supply producers fell 12 percent in the March 2019 quarter, after a 23-percent rise in the December 2018 quarter. Prices received by the industry also fell 7 percent after increasing 18 percent in the December 2018 quarter, the department said.

Power generation prices partly retreated in the March 2019 quarter, it said.

"Prices were higher than normal in the December 2018 quarter mainly due to the temporary closure of a key supplier of gas-fired generation, the Pohokura gas field, for maintenance and lower hydro lake levels," business prices manager Sarah Johnson said in a statement.

"This meant higher-cost generation filled the gap, driving up wholesale electricity prices," Johnson said.