\u201cConsumer confidence remains very subdued and, while we are seeing recovery first in the regions, it is not at the pace one would expect given the dairy payouts that historically provide the stimulus,\u201d says Mitre 10 New Zealand boss Andrea Scown. \u201cOur own customer insights point to a savings mindset. Folk don\u2019t feel out of the woods yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andrea Scown. Photo \/ Dean Purcell<\/p>\n
Another CEO adds: \u201cMy sense is the economy is very gradually improving, but it is slow. New Zealand feels like it has turned the corner, and things are improving, but we will need to see more evidence of this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Independent chairman Craig Stobo says the shift underway is structural as much as cyclical: \u201cThe required painful adjustment from debt-fuelled central government expansion to a private-sector, export-led recovery is underway. The business moods in Wellington and Wyndham are very different as a result.\u201d<\/p>\n
Institute of Directors chief executive Kirsten (KP) Patterson adds: \u201cWe have progressed from survive to 25, to survive through 25, and are now facing \u2018not yet fixed in 26\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tariffs, tensions and a global drag<\/p>\n
CEO optimism in the global economy has also slipped, dropping from 3.06\/5 last year to 2.63\/5.<\/p>\n
Executives cite international trade tensions and geopolitical volatility as major headwinds.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels like the global economy is still deep in the tariff tailspin,\u201d says Tourism Holdings CEO Grant Webster. \u201cInternationally, I think the uncertainty and disruption caused by the US tariffs will offset underlying improvements.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tourism Holdings Limited CEO Grant Webster. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n
Pan Pac Forest Products managing director Tony Clifford points to China as a persistent drag on sentiment. \u201cSoft market demand, driven by poor housing capital returns, was already evident before tariff wars exacerbated the situation,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Another CEO, recently returned from international travel, stresses that New Zealand\u2019s challenges are not unique. \u201cMost economies are in a similar state as our own \u2013 in fact, New Zealand is faring far better than many other countries.\u201d<\/p>\n
Others remain cautiously hopeful. \u201cHopefully, New Zealand is turning the corner and has already been through the worst of the economic reset,\u201d says an investment boss. \u201cThe biggest risk is that, as a small open economy, we are knocked off course by the general deterioration of global trade rules and multilateralism.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several warn that geopolitics remains the wildcard. \u201cThe twin threats of geopolitical risk and the adverse effect of Trump\u2019s \u2018Liberation Day\u2019 tariffs have made the global economic outlook much less certain,\u201d says Roger Partridge, chairman of The New Zealand Initiative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cConsumer confidence remains very subdued and, while we are seeing recovery first in the regions, it is not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[806,26630,36086,138,3500,2950,219,71,1437,2959,685,26477,27878,111,139,36155,69,1118,29432,418,8822,10115,223,584,36154,13606,1530,2963],"class_list":["post-39755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-as","tag-bite","tag-boardroom","tag-business","tag-ceo","tag-confidence","tag-economy","tag-from","tag-global","tag-high","tag-last","tag-leaders","tag-mood","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nineyear","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-optimism","tag-shows","tag-survey","tag-tensions","tag-the","tag-trade","tag-waned","tag-weaker","tag-years","tag-zealands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}