NZ Herald editorial: Hopes are high for a sparkling year

If 2018 continues as it has begun, it will be sparkling. Photo / Getty Images

A new year always dawns with hope. The sun seems brighter, the air fresher, the possibilities endless, all because the date ends in a new digit - 2018, what will it bring?

One of the few certainties is that it will bring an end to the centenary of World War I. But Armistice Day is still nearly a year away and it is as well to remember that at New Year 1918, people still had no idea when the carnage in France and Flanders might end. They had endured three-and-a-half years of sending young men to the horror of it and this year the fighting was to get more furious before it ceased. We will be reminded of the offensives and battles as their centenaries pass and on November 11 we will close the book on one of the most dreadful conflicts history has seen.

In October the world will mark another thought-provoking anniversary - 10 years since the global financial crisis. It is remarkable that it has taken many leading economies this long to genuinely recover from the crisis. Ten years ago nobody had heard of "quantitative easing", the phrase coined by central banks who had interest rates already so low that when the crisis hit they had to add to the quantity of money in their economy to maintain activity. Their device avoided a Depression but found it hard to get their economies off life support.

Meanwhile, central bankers are still looking for ways to ensure the financial system cannot repeat the mistakes that led to the crisis of 2008.

With the United States and the euro zone looking healthier now, stock markets booming and property prices more stable, 2018 starts promisingly. The main cloud on the outlook remains the trade policies of the US President. A year ago the world was waiting for his inauguration with the same fear. He started as he campaigned, taking the US out of the TPP in one of his first executive orders. But he has not picked the trade war with China that his campaign threatened, and while he is playing rough with Canada and Mexico in the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, he is not building a wall.

The world this year will make what progress it can without American leadership. China wants to step into the breach but many are becoming rightly wary of becoming too close to China. France's young President and Japan's durable Prime Minister are also stepping up on the world stage.

New Zealand, meanwhile, has a new Government with fresh projects to offer. It plans to set climate-impact, carbon-neutrality and child-poverty reduction goals. It will soon be apparent whether it simply sets goals for their own sake or as a focus for clearly stated, practical programmes.

It is our first government not to be led by the party first past the post at the previous election. It will be interesting to see whether its public acceptance suffers as the year proceeds. The Opposition, though, needs to capitalise on its election result, possibly under new leadership before the summer is out.

And what a summer it is. If 2018 continues as it has begun, it will be sparkling.