WELLINGTON (Reuters) – New Zealand’s business confidence rose in February as the economy remains on a path to recovery, an ANZ Bank survey showed on Thursday.
The survey’s headline measure showed a net 58.4% of respondents expected the economy to improve over the year ahead, versus a 54.4% optimism level in the previous poll in January.
A net 45.1% of respondents expected their own businesses to grow in the next 12 months, down from 45.8% last month.
“The economy remains on the path to recovery as interest rates fall and our commodity export prices outperform expectations,” ANZ chief economist Sharon Zollner said in a note.
“It seems clear from a wide range of indicators that the economy returned to positive growth in the last three months of last year.”
(Reporting by Lucy Craymer; Editing by Himani Sarkar)
