Q2 GDP Expected To Rise Driven By Services

Q2 NZ GDP is released on Thursday September 21 and Bloomberg consensus is expecting it to rise 0.4% q/q to be up 1.2% y/y, on the back of the stronger services sector, after falling 0.1% q/q in Q1. Q1 and Q4 2022 both contracted signalling a technical recession. Today’s Q2 current account data also showed a robust rise in both services and goods nominal exports in the quarter. The RBNZ has +0.5% q/q in its August forecast update.

• Economist forecasts are in a broad range from -0.4% to +0.8% q/q and thus +0.3% to 1.5% y/y. Most estimates are between 0.3%-0.6% q/q and 1%-1.3% y/y. Local banks BNZ, ASB & Kiwibank expect 0.6%/1.3%, ANZ 0.4%/1.1% and at the upper end Westpac 0.8%/1.5%. BNZ expects the primary and goods sectors to be more mixed than services.