Business confidence 'encouragingly robust' despite lockdown

As an essential industry, lockdown confidnce in agriculture sector has stayed stronger. Photo / Michael Craig

ANZ's Business Outlook survey, taken across the period that New Zealand locked down, shows promising signs, says ANZ chief economist Sharon Zollner.

Headline business confidence fell 10 points this month; firms' expectations around their own activity fell 7 points.

This month the survey results have been divided into before and after lockdown.

The two samples account for roughly 75 per cent and 25 per cent of the responses respectively.

"Initial responses after level 4 lockdown look encouragingly robust, but it's early days," Zollner said.

"Firms' balance sheets are generally in pretty good shape to weather this storm (outside of hospitality and those exposed to international tourism), and a strong bounce-back is a good base case. But it's not a given."

The inevitable lockdown impact was clear, she said.

"But it's worth noting that many activity indicators, including own activity and investment intentions, were easing from high levels before lockdown."

Employment intentions were so far looking robust and inflation pressures remained intense.

Inflation expectations at 3.05 per cent (for the whole month sample) marked the first time since late 2011 they've been out the top of the RBNZ's target range of 1-3 per cent.

Pricing intentions also remain extremely high, as do expected costs, Zollner said.

ANZ economists yesterday forecast that the latest lockdown would likely see New Zealand's GDP drop by 6 per cent in the September quarter.

But they remained confident of a V-shaped economic recovery.

"With fiscal policy stepping in to absorb most of that hit, households and businesses should be relatively sheltered," the ANZ outlook said.

"If last year's recovery was anything to go by, then it's reasonable to expect economic activity to return to pre-lockdown levels before too long."

ANZ has retain the "optimistic assumption" we get Covid under control relatively quickly, and can get back to alert level 1 as a base case.

Agriculture, as an essential industry, held up well.

A sharp fall in manufacturing employment intentions was off a spike the month before, so isn't concerning at this stage, Zollner said.