New Zealand’s economy has slipped into recession as its GDP declined by 1.0% in Q3.
Official data said on Thursday that New Zealand officially fell into recession in the third quarter. The economy’s steeper-than-expected fall knocked New Zealand’s currency into the tank and sparked some angry pointing fingers in parliament.
For months, the economy has stood on the brink of recession as high prices, elevated borrowing costs, and a housing crisis have hammered consumer sentiment. But the latest statistics showed gross domestic product had fallen a bigger-than-expected 1.0 percent July-September from the previous three months. The analysts had forecast a contraction of 0.2 percent.
That marked the second quarterly contraction after shrinking a revised 1.1 percent in April-June. Yes, the one percent decline in activity is huge. And it’s much weaker than anyone had anticipated,” said a report by Kiwibank Economics. The New Zealand economy had posted the weakest six-month period since 1991, excluding an economic decline during the Covid-19 pandemic, it said.
