KEY POINTS:
The Bank of New Zealand's latest confidence survey has found information technology going through a busy period.
That level of activity was perhaps driven by businesses upgrading to boost productivity and attack margins, the BNZ Confidence Survey published today said.
During the past month respondents to the survey became more pessimistic about their expectations for the economy during the next year.
A net 11 per cent of those taking part expected the economy to worsen during the next 12 months, compared with a net 1 per cent expecting it to improve in the February survey, BNZ said.
That still left confidence at a relatively high level, and the March survey may even have had a small downward bias as the survey was taken immediately after the Reserve Bank increased interest rates and following the decline in world sharemarkets.
The concerns which had been expressed revolved mainly around labour shortages and the quality of staff, compliance costs, and the high exchange rate, BNZ said.
Industry comments indicated mixed expectations for agriculture, with a negative bias, tight margins, exchange rate worries, but some in the industry were seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, BNZ said.
Construction continued to look strong with some good forward order books, while manufacturers were generally struggling under the high NZ dollar.
Residential property was still strong, with no fresh signs of weakness, but the new and used vehicle industry was struggling.
An auto electrical business had said it was extremely busy and suggested that was because it had constantly bought the most up-to-date technical equipment available on the market.
Those who had not seemed to be falling behind in both technical ability and knowledge.
A respondent from the information technology industry told the survey that exporters it dealt with were buying and replacing assets hand over fist.
BNZ said those two comments were in line with indications it was increasingly picking up around the country.
- NZPA
