A court was told this morning that businesswoman May Wang owes the company Latitude Asia $2.5 million.

The Reserve Bank is tipped to raise the Official Cash Rate next week, despite lower than expected economic growth.

The New Zealand dollar gained on a weakening greenback after comments from the Reserve Bank of Australia yesterday spurred traders' appetite for high-yielding currencies.

Kiwibank, which led its rivals in cutting two-year fixed home loan rates last week, has now followed them by reducing its three, four and five year rates.

Auckland house sales slumped 16pc in June, with the average sale price falling 3.6pc from a year ago, says real estate firm Barfoot & Thompson.

Westpac economists expect house prices to fall about 2 per cent this year and another 2 per cent next year.

House prices will fall gently for the next two years before levelling out, says a leading bank economist.

About 10,000 new homes need to be built in NZ to keep pace with population growth and ease the current housing squeeze, a new report shows.

All the major trading banks have now lifted their mortgage rates, with BNZ becoming the last to move following the recent OCR hike.

Consumer confidence rebounded in the June quarter, helped by income tax changes unveiled in last month’s budget.

May Wang's lawyer is confident creditors will accept her proposal to repay them just 2c in the dollar to settle a multi-million dollar debt.

New Zealand's farm and forestry exports are bouncing back in the wake of the global recession, agricultural economists say.