Leaders feeling confident

New Zealand's senior business leaders are increasingly confident about the state of the economy and the future of their own businesses.

But the latest Business Herald Business Leaders Survey suggests they do not attribute their confidence to the Government's actions.

The chief executives who took part in the survey said the present business environment was as favourable as at any time in the past two years.

On a scale of 0 to 10 - where 0 is highly negative and 10 is extremely positive - the present business environment scored 6.5, compared with the survey average of 5.8 and last month's score of 5.3.

Looking ahead, they rated the business environment in 12 months at 6.1, the highest in the history of the survey and ahead of the survey average for that indicator of 5.3.

They also indicated that they were optimistic for their own firms, rating the likelihood of them expanding in the next 12 months at 6.8.

However, the Government's contribution to the economy rated a very negative 3.6, clearly below the survey average of 4.

By contrast, the Reserve Bank's role was a slightly positive 5.4.