The economic data is coming thick and fast. For example, tourism, our second-biggest export earner, saw 3.6 million overseas visitor arrivals in the year to June \u2013 300,000 more than last year. We\u2019ve seen an all-time record for Australians visiting, and a big increase in Chinese tourists.<\/p>\n
One of the more interesting figures is how much ready-mixed concrete was poured: a million cubic metres in the June quarter, up 12 percent on the same time last year.<\/p>\n
Andrew Kelleher, the executive director of financial services company Shaw and Partners, jokes that he always looks forward to getting that figure.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s sort of the foundation for most building projects, isn\u2019t it? You don\u2019t build unless you\u2019ve got some concrete in there somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
The figure is the solid evidence that building consents are translating into actual work.<\/p>\n
But the numbers also show a clear difference between north and south.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is so evident in almost all of the data that we see; the housing market is the most stark illustration of it \u2026 where you\u2019ve seen very different experiences in these markets from the two big urban areas of Auckland and Wellington versus what\u2019s happening in the South Island.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of this is to do with what I call proximity to primary produce markets. Somewhere like the Canterbury region and Christchurch itself, it\u2019s very close to what\u2019s happening in dairy, whereas you go to Auckland, you go to Wellington \u2026 Wellington you have a lot of government sector there, Auckland much more services and manufacturing-based and you\u2019re just seeing completely different outcomes in these two places.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s very much a two-speed and a bifurcation of what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n
He says normally when New Zealand has done well economically there\u2019s a combination of three factors behind it: a house-price boom, increasing numbers of people coming into the country, and a government spending splurge.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could argue that we certainly haven\u2019t got two of them right now; we haven\u2019t got the house prices booming, and we\u2019re not importing lots of people. And then we could probably have ongoing debates, robust debates \u2026 about what is the actual level of government spending because it hasn\u2019t actually dropped very much since the coalition Government has been in power.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we can get a recovery that isn\u2019t dependent on simply speculation in the housing market and house prices rising, that\u2019s a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
It means first-home buyers have more access to the market, which is a positive, but it does take away the feel-good factor from people whose real estate is getting more valuable, who might otherwise be out and happy to spend money.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut if we\u2019re building a more productive economy, and if we\u2019re building an economy based not on speculation but based on doing some real stuff, that\u2019s probably a good thing but I don\u2019t know if we\u2019re going to see it be quite as frothy as it might be, and certainly not felt as universally as if it was based on house prices going up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kelleher says there are still real pockets out there where people won\u2019t feel the effect of improvement, \u201cand this becomes quite topical given we\u2019ve got an election in November\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re running out of time for that sort of feel-good factor of economic growth to actually reach into households around New Zealand.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alan MacDonald, the head of advocacy and strategy at the Employers and Manufacturers Association, says all the conversation about manufacturing improvement has concentrated on what\u2019s been driven by the primary sector in the regions, but the figures also tell a bit of an \u201cunderplayed story\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at the Performance and Manufacturing Index, that\u2019s had quite a good run over the last 12 months or so. It\u2019s a good solid data-set and it tells a pretty reasonable story at the moment that underpins that recovery piece.\u201d<\/p>\n
Food production is always a factor, \u201cbut we do some really smart stuff, some of the stuff we do around composites and things like that, the stuff that goes into rockets for Rocket Lab and it goes into Formula 1 cars, the big racing yachts and that sort of stuff. It\u2019s not unique to us but it\u2019s something we\u2019re very good at.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re also good at a whole lot of niche engineering things \u2026 For example laser-guided mowing systems \u2026 who does that? Well actually there\u2019s a company down in the Bay of Plenty that does that, and they export it, and they\u2019re mowing 80 or so golf courses in the US.\u201d<\/p>\n
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