May 20, 2013 12:00pm by David Farrar

Bagrie on NZ economy

While parts of the rest of the world are still wallowing in recession, New Zealand in recent months has had a significant number of economic bright spots that could see the country reach “rock star status” within the next four years.

That was the view of ANZ bank chief economist Cameron Bagrie speaking at a post Budget luncheon briefing in Christchurch yesterday.

We’re modest people and don’t like to talk ourselves up, but when you look at the mess Europe, US, Japan is in – we’re doing pretty well. Standard and Poors put us in the top 10 most stable economies.

“I’m progressively getting a lot more upbeat about New Zealand’s economic prospects,” he said.

Through recent changes as a result of the global financial crisis, New Zealand had stolen a “three year march” on Australia, which had not “changed a thing” as a result of the crisis.

The mining boom across the Tasman had peaked and the Australians were seeing a distinct lack of economic and political leadership, with the country looking “a pretty dire place”.

Bagrie said New Zealand was being re-rated by the world.

“New Zealand has made some massive inroads in that game in the past three or four years. [If] we continue to do so, we are going to have rock star status in the growth space internationally at some stage in the next four years.

Unless we make the great leap backwards to the 1970s with printing money and nationalisation of companies.