Companies stay positive

Business confidence eased in the past month, but remained firmly positive.

BNZ's first confidence survey for 2010, published yesterday, found a net 37 per cent of respondents expected the economy to improve in the coming year, down from 43 per cent in the last survey in December.

BNZ chief economist Tony Alexander said the results of the BNZ survey suggested reasonable growth in the economy this year but reading through responses from businesses showed that across sectors many weak patches remained, along with high caution regarding cash flow and balance sheet management.