Welcome to the April 26 2012 issue of the BNZ Weekly Overview.
Good evening everyone – although where I am in Canary Wharf in London it should be good morning. Reading the Financial
Times each morning and speaking with many people over the past week one thing is clear – this part of the planet is weak
and there is no reason for believing that this situation will change in the coming year. The UK economy has just slipped
back into recession as has Spain, manufacturing sector indicators for the Euro-Zone have plunged, the French
Presidential election may produce a Socialist winner intent on raising taxes and boosting government spending even
further, the Greeks may soon elect a Government opposed to austerity measures, the Dutch Government has just collapsed,
and the much vaunted fiscal pact aimed at making the Euro-Zone workable could be falling apart.
Considering the situation here, the underlying doubts about labour and housing markets in the United States, and
weakness which next week is likely to force the Reserve Bank of Australia to ease monetary policy again, it is
unsurprisingly that the NZ dollar remains strong. We look less bad than the rest. That is the case even though the
employment data released in NZ this week show jobs growth slowing to 0.2% in the past three months form 0.3% in the
three months before that and 0.4% before that.
At least construction prospects look good and over here companies are hiring people to work on engineering designs for
the Christchurch CBD rebuild.
ends