Money supply rises fastest in more than a year

Reserve Bank data for November 2008 shows that our money supply, as measured by M3, rose 9.4% compared with the same month a year earlier. This was the fastest rate of growth since June 2007, and reverses the falling trend in place since then. There is now more than $214 billion in circulation in New Zealand. a record level, and it spurted ahead almost $5 billion from October, itself a record monthly jump. Although this money supply data does not directly show it, it is likely much of this growth is as a result of the monetary authority's pump-priming as they try to fend off the impacts of the recession and credit crunch.