Count your blessings says BNZ research chief

The ledgendary Fred Dagg had a phrase that is now stuck in NZ folk lore "We don't know how lucky we are," and it seems Stephen Toplis from the BNZ agrees with him. While many in earthquake and flooding areas may find this half full approach hard to take, relevant to the rest of the developed world NZ's economy has performed amazingly well.

And it has been agriculture, a sector that is often maligned for it's poor profitability, that has led NZ's performance recently. The challenge for industry leaders and marketers is to lock in this new found wealth. Fonterra leads this growth with the expansion of production and price, but the meat sectors price improvement has been driven by production falls.

However the meat, velvet, and wool sectors do not seem to have enough industry unity to agree on any long term industry plan, and in the world of agricultural commodities cyclical patterns driven by supply and demand, could bring back times of unsustainable prices.

Rural people often feel the lack of understanding of city folk to what drives the NZ economy, but it seems they have an advocate in Stephen Toplis who credits agriculture of playing its part in placing NZ "as one of the fastest growing Western economies in the world".

Do you agree with his summation,and should we be driving agriculture harder, to maintain this recent success?

Be grateful you live in New Zealand because the rest of the developed world is a mess. That was the message from BNZ head of research Stephen Toplis, who gave his view of the New Zealand economy at a presentation in Auckland yesterday reports Stuff. Despite the Christchurch earthquakes, he said, "New Zealand has one of the fastest-growing Western economies – that's quite a remarkable performance." Meanwhile, the United States and Europe were in "complete disarray".

The US housing market was still showing a high level of mortgagee sales, reflecting a structural problem that would take years to resolve, and Europe faced recession and "10 years of pain" before it would fully emerge from its current crisis. Toplis said that in his view the economy would continue to grow modestly despite international headwinds, with farming and construction providing most of the impetus.

While meat and dairy were enjoying good market and growing conditions, "construction will play a big part in growth over the next 12 to 18 months", he said. And it would not just be the Christchurch rebuild – the construction sector was building 12,000 houses a year, but there was demand for 18,000-20,000. Non-residential activity would also be driven by the need to upgrade commercial buildings for earthquake resistance.

The the biggest and least understood risk, said Toplis, was a transmission of financial stress from Europe to New Zealand through the banking system. "In effect, New Zealand banks can't borrow enough money from New Zealanders, so they look overseas. A significant portion of funding comes from Europe and the US. If that source of funding dries up it's problematic."