Highlights of Westpac’s latest economic bulletin:
• General business confidence fell in the wake of the Christchurch earthquake, although firms’ own activity and expectations held up reasonably well.
• Rising costs are increasingly a concern for businesses, although the conditions for an inflationary spiral are not yet as ripe as they were last decade.
• The survey is consistent with weakly positive GDP growth in Q1, though we suspect this doesn’t capture the full impact of the quake.
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