Bagrie on NZ economy

Stuff reports:

The year ahead will be one of “pure economic expansion” for New Zealand, says ANZ chief economist Cameron Bagrie.

He cites falling unemployment, strong net migration, steady salary growth and the strong NZD.

“New Zealand’s economic model basically blew up in 2008.

“It was a big wake-up call.”

Businesses got back to basics, focusing on reducing debt, improving productivity and collaborating more within industries, he said.

Two years ago the biggest problem facing many businesses was a lack of customer demand but now the biggest problem was trying to meet demand which required the right skilled labour to do so, he said. …

Australia’s economy is in a very different place to New Zealand’s, he said.

“They’re looking for plan B and they can’t find plan B. New Zealand had to find plan B after the GFC and I’ll tell you what we found plan B, C, D and E.”

It should indeed be a good year.