BNZ chief economist Tony Alexander said yesterday the survey showed the high optimism was helping underpin market expectations of accelerating economic growth, eventually rising interest rates, rising employment, rising house prices, diminishing resource availability and some future recovery in the New Zealand dollar.
British business confidence is the highest since 2007, bolstered by fast-rising exports, a survey showed, in fresh evidence that Britain is slowly recovering from the financial crisis.
The British Chambers of Commerce's quarterly economic survey - Britain's largest major business poll - also showed a strong rise in firms' domestic and overseas sales over the past three months, boding well for official data due later this month.
In New Zealand, 642 people responded to the BNZ June survey, the highest number for more than a year. Last month, only 93 responded but Mr Alexander put that down to the survey link being hidden among other information on his weekly overview email. Of those responding, a net 55.6% expected business conditions to improve.
The survey asked if people felt happy or unhappy that house prices were rising.
''We ask this question now in order to get an understanding as to whether societal attitudes towards house price rises are changing in some way which might give the Government greater or lesser scope for more intervention policies.
''In a nutshell, do we really care?''
In May, a net 29% of the 93 respondents were unhappy about house prices rising. The result was the same in June, illustrating the way in which changes in sample size above a certain level made little difference to full sample results, Mr Alexander said.
The survey also asked if people were thinking about borrowing more money for their business in the next three months. The question was included to try to get early information which might be useful to the Reserve Bank as it considered monetary policy settings.
In May, 28% of respondents said they were thinking about it, compared with 28% in June.
A net 44% of respondents were ''relaxed'' about New Zealand's rising economic relationship with China, Mr Alexander said.
Other British surveys had shown a similar pattern to the results provided by the British Chambers of Commerce, Reuters reported. Markit's June manufacturing purchasing managers' index on Monday was the highest in more than two years, as was last week's GfK consumer confidence barometer.
''The UK economy is slowly strengthening,'' chamber chief economist David Kern said.
''If recent progress can be sustained, there are realistic hopes that growth forecasts will be revised up further.''
Britain's recovery since the 2007-08 financial crisis has been the slowest since modern records began, and weaker than in any Group of Seven economy apart from Italy.
At the end of May, the chamber forecast the economy would grow 0.9% this year. But based in part on yesterday's data, it now expected growth of 0.6% in the second quarter alone. That compared with 0.3% growth in the first three months of the year, and 0.5% forecast by the Bank of England for the second quarter.
At a glance
• Business confidence at eight-year high
• Confidence underpinning accelerating economic growth
• British business confidence highest since 2007
• Realistic hopes British economic growth will be revised up
