The Reserve Bank today left the Official Cash Rate (OCR) unchanged at 2.5 percent.
Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard said: “There is more evidence that the decline in economic activity is coming to an end, and that a patchy recovery is underway.
“This is partly due to recovery in our trading partner economies in the June quarter and these look likely to continue expanding in the short term. Domestically, retail spending appears to have stopped falling, following a rise in net immigration and a pick-up in the housing market over recent months.
“However, the medium-term growth outlook remains weak. We expect household spending to grow only modestly given weak income growth and a reduced appetite to take on debt. Business profits are under pressure because of the low level of activity and the elevated New Zealand dollar; this limits the scope for employment and investment to rebound quickly.
“For growth to be sustained in the medium term there is a need for improved competitiveness in the export sector and a continued recovery of household savings. This rebalancing is required to stabilise New Zealand’s external payments position. If the exchange rate were to continue its recent appreciation and/or the recovery in house prices were to undermine the improvement in household savings, then the sustainability of the present recovery will be brought into question.
“Annual CPI inflation is currently well within the target band and is expected to track comfortably within the band over the medium term.
“As we have said previously, the forecast recovery in economic activity is based on monetary policy continuing to provide substantial support to the economy. We expect such support will be needed for some time. As a result, we continue to expect to keep the OCR at or below the current level through until the latter part of 2010
Sign up to create alerts for Instruments,
Economic Events and content by followed authors
Free Sign Up Already have an account? Sign In
Add a Comment
We encourage you to use comments to engage with other users, share your perspective and ask questions of authors and each other. However, in order to maintain the high level of discourse we’ve all come to value and expect, please keep the following criteria in mind:
Enrich the conversation, don’t trash it.
Stay focused and on track. Only post material that’s relevant to the topic being discussed.
Be respectful. Even negative opinions can be framed positively and diplomatically. Avoid profanity, slander or personal attacks directed at an author or another user. Racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination will not be tolerated.
Perpetrators of spam or abuse will be deleted from the site and prohibited from future registration at Investing.com’s discretion.