New Zealand's GDP Better Than Expected

New Zealand’s economy shrunk by -0.9% in the three months ending 2008 after economists had expected this south-Pacific country’s GDP to contract by more. The move marks the fourth straight quarter that the island-nation has seen its annual output decrease.
Since July the central bank has slashed interest rates by 5.25% to 3.0% in an effort to provide short-term liquidity to businesses and financial markets in order to stave off the effects of the global recession.





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New Zealand Economy Will-Contract 2% In 2009 Says IMF

In a report filed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) the Washington-based body said that the New Zealand economy will contract by 2.0% this year. “The near-term outlook is weak,” they mentioned. “Households are constrained by high debt levels, falling house and equity prices and uncertain employment prospects,” they added.

The startling words come after Bill English, New Zealand’s Minister of Finance, said that the current account gap is “uncomfortable large”. Indeed, the actual figure for the current account balance in the final quarter of 2008 came in at -4.026, surprisingly better than in the three-month period prior. Despite what would look to be as a positive sign, the deficit-GDP ratio actually became weaker, coming in at -8.9% from -8.6% the period prior.

Claims of weakness in the country are legitimate. Now, in its fifth straight quarter of contraction, the New Zealand economy has shed thousands of job. In the final three months of 2008, their unemployment rate jumped 0.4 percentage points to 4.6%, the highest level since 2003. Their Treasury department predicts that it will get worse. They have forecast that by early 2010 the jobless rate may jump to an 11-year high of 7.2%.

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Until Next Time,

JT