Drought hasn't stopped confidence hitting a 19 month high
Welcome to the March BNZ Confidence Survey Results
Our second monthly BNZ Confidence Survey for 2013 has found that in spite of the spreading drought, export-suppressing
high exchange rate, and worries about housing affordability, sentiment regarding where the economy is heading has
improved to the highest level since July 2011.
A net 41% of businesses are confident about the year ahead compared with a net 32% in February.
In the construction and civil construction sectors activity is noticeably strong or picking up, and residential real
estate remains buoyant with the long noted shortage of listings broadly continuing. The forestry sector is again
reported to be in improving condition. But substantial caution prevails in the agricultural sector with worries about
the drought.
One noticeably newly strong sector is recruitment. All six comments received were on the positive side so maybe this is
an early indicator of things solidly cyclically improving.
Survey results are available here.
The BNZ Confidence Survey is one of a suite of five publications. The monthly Growing With China issues are here.
The monthly Brain Gain NZ can be located here.
The Weekly Overviews are loaded here.
The monthly BNZ-REINZ Residential Market Surveys are posted here.
The monthly BNZ Confidence Surveys are available here.