Confidence rebound consistent with other data

Finance Minister Michael Cullen said today that the National Bank Business Outlook showing a continuing improvement in headline confidence echoed data from other surveys and augured well for economic growth.

He was commenting on the Bank’s October survey which showed that the proportion of respondents expecting general business conditions to deteriorate had dropped from net 21 percent last month to net 12 percent and that the percentage of firms remaining confident about their own prospects was steady at net 23 percent positive.

“The own activity result, which is regarded as the more reliable indicator of future growth, is especially encouraging and is consistent with the responses to other polls.

“These include the latest NBR-Compaq poll showing 60 percent of New Zealanders think the country is heading in the right direction and the Television One/Colmar Brunton poll showing 42 percent optimistic about the economy against only 29 percent pessimistic,” Dr Cullen said.

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