Latest / Best of Business / Alan McDonald: EMA Head of Advocacy on Kiwi businesses raising concerns over the war in Iran

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Alan McDonald: EMA Head of Advocacy on Kiwi businesses raising concerns over the war in Iran · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk z'b follow
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  Speaker 2: Alan McDonald is EMA's head of advocacy and strategy and
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  Speaker 2: with us Hi Allen. I mean this will be ultimately
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  Speaker 2: she eased back to the Iran war, right, Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: And there's a few indicators around that show that things
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  Speaker 3: are really quickly coming off the boil in terms of
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  Speaker 3: confidence and just looking ahead, just at the wrong time
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  Speaker 3: of course.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, the I mean, does that drop off in optimism realistic?
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  Speaker 2: Are people being realistic or they being too gloomy?
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  Speaker 3: I think it's just put a handbrake on the expectations
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  Speaker 3: they have. I mean, if you look at the say,
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  Speaker 3: for example, the Performance of Manufacturing index that had five
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  Speaker 3: or six consecutive months of being positive based on forward orders,
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  Speaker 3: based on intent to invest in, based on intent to
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  Speaker 3: on hire. So people were looking ahead and think things
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  Speaker 3: are going to get better, and then we get this
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  Speaker 3: great big handbrake with the around conflict that's going on.
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  Speaker 2: Tell you what was surprising about I think construction industry
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  Speaker 2: was gloomy, which wasn't at all a surprise, but manufacturing
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  Speaker 2: was reasonably upbeat. Thirty four percent net of manufacturers are
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  Speaker 2: expecting economic conditions to improve.
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  Speaker 3: Why I think the answer lies and further into the
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  Speaker 3: report where comments on the export forward orders holding up
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  Speaker 3: quite strongly. And if I look at our own membership base,
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  Speaker 3: probably about just slightly under thirty percent identify as manufacturers
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  Speaker 3: and a similar number identify as exporters, when actually they're
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  Speaker 3: probably both for many of them are, and the export orders,
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  Speaker 3: as we know, have have been holding things up. But
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  Speaker 3: also if you delve into the PMI the performance of
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  Speaker 3: manufacturing one while manufacturing had come off the boil a
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  Speaker 3: little bit, sixty plus percent of the comments were negative.
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  Speaker 3: And then when we surveyed our own members on the
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  Speaker 3: impacts of the fuel crisis, more than eighty percent of
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  Speaker 3: them were expecting their own activity to reduce will be
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  Speaker 3: impacted negative fully. So I think the longer this goes,
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  Speaker 3: the more those manufacturing numbers might start to reflect what
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  Speaker 3: that overall business confidence number is and the NZI.
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  Speaker 2: What's the biggest problem for manufacturers at the moment is it?
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  Speaker 2: Is it access to energy?
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  Speaker 1: Uh?
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  Speaker 3: Well, access to energy includes electricity as well as fuel.
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  Speaker 3: That's longing, but fuel coming through strongly and construction as
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  Speaker 3: you've mentioned the distribution sector. We know the problem with
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  Speaker 3: plastics and the costs going into their retail activity coming
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  Speaker 3: off the boil and the hospow industry also saying that numbers.
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  Speaker 2: I think we probably liver there. Sorry about the quality
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  Speaker 2: of that.
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