The New Zealand economy may already be in recession.
Westpac reckons “there’s a wide margin of uncertainty around the quarterly result.”
Bloomberg polled 16 experts, and nine of them foresee a contraction in the first quarter, while five see mild growth and two see a flat result.
The GDP data should reveal the earliest effects of Cyclone Gabrielle, which ripped through major food-producing regions in the middle of February, destroying farms and reducing exports and construction activities.
As a result of its tightening on consumers re-fixing their home loans at considerably higher interest rates, the RBNZ predicts a small recession in the second and third quarters of this year.
However, the Treasury Department retracted its prediction of three consecutive quarters of contraction this year in the May budget, claiming that growth will be supported by tourist arrivals, cyclone recovery activity, and government investment.
That is, NZ pollies are desperately seeking to hide the recession, as well as make it worse in per capita terms, by ramping mass immigration into rising unemployment.
The toxic Australian economic model has gone global across the Anglosphere.
