Reserve Bank of New Zealand

News Release

1 July 2004

June 2004 Reserve Bank Bulletin released

The Reserve Bank today released the June 2004 issue of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bulletin.

The June issue contains articles spanning most of the Reserve Bank's core functions. In addition, for the first time the Bulletin features an interview.

The first article reviews the Bank's Policy Targets Agreement (PTA) and, in particular, its requirement for the Bank "to seek to avoid unnecessary instability in economic output, interest rates and the exchange rate".

A variation on this theme appears in the second article, which assesses the causes of exchange rate movements, asking whether exchange rates exhibit similar trends to asset prices, such as financial asset prices or property prices.

The third article analyses developments in the New Zealand banking sector in 2003. The article also provides an update of recent developments in banking supervision policy and related matters.

Still on a financial stability theme, the last article looks at the results of the Financial Sector Assessment Programme (FSAP) evaluation of the New Zealand financial system, conducted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) late last year.

The interview in this Bulletin is with Professor George Kaufman, of Loyola University Chicago, who recently spent time in Wellington, much of it at the Reserve Bank. In that period, he worked on a range of financial stability issues relevant to the work of the Reserve Bank. This Bulletin also contains a public lecture that Professor Kaufman delivered while in New Zealand.

Finally, this Bulletin contains a copy of the Policy Conclusions paper that emerged from the APEC Policy Dialogue on Financial Disclosure, which was held in February this year and co-chaired by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and the Ministry of Finance of Chile.

ENDS

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