October 3, 2018 7:00am by David Farrar

NZIER business confidence survey hits GFC low

The Government’s been given yet another loud wake-up call from the business community, with the influential NZIER Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion showing another drop in business confidence.

The survey released on Tuesday revealed that a net 28% of businesses expect economic conditions to worsen. This is the lowest level since March 2009. The New Zealand dollar dropped after the survey results came out, from US66.15c to US65.95c.

The most watched measure in the survey is that for firms’ own domestic trading activity. This is bad too. The NZIER said firms’ own activity for the September quarter and expectations for the next quarter both fell, indicating a slowing in economic growth over the second half of 2018.

Meanwhile the Governments keeps saying there is no problem.