New Zealand business confidence improved strongly in May as the economy emerges from lockdown, a preliminary business outlook survey from ANZ showed Tuesday.
The business confidence index surged 21 points to -45.6 in May from -66.6 in April.The 'own activity outlook' index advanced 13 points, still a net 42 percent expects lower activity for their firms in the year ahead.
All forward-looking activity indicators namely export intentions, investment intentions, capacity utilization, employment intentions and profit expectations improved from April levels but they remained extremely weak. At the same time, backward-looking indicators were deteriorating.
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June 19, 2026 16:46 ET Major central banks continued to dominate the economic news flow this week too, led by the Federal Reserve, as they announced their latest policy decisions. The Federal Reserve policy session was in focus as it was the first to be led by the new chief Kevin Warsh. In Europe, central banks of the U.K. and Switzerland announced their rate decisions. In Asia, the Bank of Japan drew attention for its policy moves, while data out of China threw some light on the state of the economy.