New Zealand's economic news gets animated from tomorrow onwards, depending on Statistics New Zealand being able to publish its reports as scheduled and in full.
BNZ senior economist Craig Ebert said yesterday he had been encouraged by the on-time and in full publication of October's merchandise trade figures at Friday.
However, markets were still awaiting the details of October's international travel and migration figures and any news on the year to March national accounts.
The first New Zealand report of the week was one from the Reserve Bank, the six-monthly Financial Stability Report due tomorrow at 9am.
``This will no doubt devote a fair bit of discussion to the very latest loan-to-value [LVR] changes in the context of housing performance.''
It was worth recalling the November Monetary Policy Statement assumed inflation in the housing market would stay high for a short time before dissipating further out, he said.
Anecdotal evidence suggested there was a slowing already in Auckland.
While the housing market might well be slowing, the dairy sector was recovering on the back of rebounding prices. Questions remained about whether the Reserve Bank could be as guarded about the dairy industry as it had been of late, even as recently as its November MPS, Mr Ebert said.
Reserve Bank governor Graeme Wheeler was also due to appear before Parliament's Financial and Expenditure Committee just after 1pm tomorrow.
About the same time, the ANZ business survey would be released. There would be interest in whether confidence was affected by the November 14 earthquake, although it was not clear whether there would be enough post-quake responses in tomorrow's addition to get a decent read, he said.
``We are more assured recent dairy price gains will be bolstering morale.''
The BNZ was still cautious about how third-quarter economic growth, measured by gross domestic product (GDP), had performed, mainly because of softer agriculture output.
On Thursday, overseas trade indices would be released.
Merchandise terms of trade would soon be testing new all time highs, but not as soon as in the third-quarter data where a slight lift was expected, Mr Ebert said.
Lower goods exports and higher imports would roughly conform to third-quarter growth estimates of 0.8%.
The next test would be Friday's building work put in place report. The data was expected to register another robust quarterly increase of about 2.5%, he said.
``We're conscious of it following two very chunky gains in the first two quarters.
``Then again, there is a lot to suggest the building sector is on a very strong trajectory to which Wednesday's building consents for October will attest.
``The recent quakes only add, on balance, to the construction work needing to be carried out.''
Money and credit aggregates would also be released tomorrow with the BNZ on guard for a slowdown in housing credit following the latest LVR restrictions. There had not been any hard evidence of that, even in the new residential lending figures seen in the last week of October.
There should also be some slowing in agriculture lending growth at some stage as dairy sector cash flow pressures abated, Mr Ebert said.
Finally, Finance Minister Bill English was scheduled to give testimony on the latest Crown accounts tomorrow.
``We doubt any fiscal policy will be in the offing here. This will be left for the Half-Year Economic and Fiscal Update currently scheduled for December 8.
``Still, Bill might take the opportunity to say something interesting about anything in this public forum. So just keep an ear open.''
