On March 31 New Zealand's official monitoring of Y2K will end with the closures of the Y2K Readiness Commission and the State Service Commission's Y2K Project Office.

Information Technology Minister Paul Swain said New Zealand managed its way through the Y2K period without any significant problems being reported.

"That is a tribute to the massive effort to identify and address potential Y2K problems in the public and private sector and by people who ensured they were ready for any problems in their own homes," he said.

“I want to thank the Y2K Readiness Commission and its consultative committee - including the SSC Project Office - who led the Y2K effort at the national level.

“There are those who claim the Y2K threat was imagined - but testing showed that more than a quarter of New Zealand businesses, and almost all of our larger organisations, found Y2K issues which had to be resolved.

"In public hospitals alone 6% of medical devices would have failed if the work had not been done to identify and fix them.

“New Zealand spent more than $1billion to ensure it was Y2K ready and there have been a number of unexpected benefits to the country from that work.

"Many business and public sector agencies have updated their technology and have put business continuity plans in place to manage future crises. Many New Zealanders are now better prepared at home to handle civil disasters.

"In fact 80 percent of New Zealanders surveyed said they had prepared for any emergency on the changeover to the year 2000 – a huge acheivement relative to other disaster preparation exercises.

"We want businesses and the public to stay prepared and I encourage businesses to keep their continuity plans up to date and the public to maintain their household B-Ready kits.

“Again, my congratulations to everyone who helped New Zealand through the Y2K turnover period. It was due to your hard work leading up to December 31 and of course on the night, that it was such a smooth transition," Paul Swain said.

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