Latest / Best of Business / Stephen Toplis: BNZ Head of Research on what the second quarter GDP results mean for the economy

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Stephen Toplis: BNZ Head of Research on what the second quarter GDP results mean for the economy · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from Newstalk ZB. Follow this
• 0:13
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• 0:16
  Speaker 2: The GDP number for Q2 is out and it is positive.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: We went up 0.2%. Also, Q1 has been revised up
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: from 0.8 to 0.9. It's all good news. Stephen Topless
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: is BNZ's head of research and with us. Hi, Stephen.
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, good evening.
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  Speaker 2: Now, considering this covers the period after the Iran war,
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: while the Iran war was ongoing.
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  Speaker 4: It's not bad, is it?
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  Speaker 3: No, it's not. I mean, we knew the country was
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: under the cost during that period, largely because of rapidly
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  Speaker 3: rising oil prices, and it was struggling, but at least
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: it was struggling with the positive sign in front of
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: it rather than the negative one.
• 0:49
  Speaker 4: What happened in construction that it lifted so much?
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  Speaker 3: Not altogether sure, to be quite honest. It's a bit
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  Speaker 3: of a strange quirk that construction is doing as well
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  Speaker 3: as it is, but we do know that there's been
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: quite a lot of development in the residential sector. We
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  Speaker 3: do know that there's been quite a lot of work
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  Speaker 3: in terms of infrastructure built, hospitals, schools, the like. So
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  Speaker 3: I suspect it's revealing the sort of momentum that's coming
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  Speaker 3: through from the broader infrastructure build, and that includes private
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  Speaker 3: sector infrastructure and state sector infrastructure.
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  Speaker 4: Now, discretionary spending seems to be holding us back a bit.
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  Speaker 4: Is that about right?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely. And if you think about what is it
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  Speaker 3: that's been making us miserable, it's inflation's been eroding spending power.
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  Speaker 3: And when the likes of oil prices are taking, stealing
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  Speaker 3: your money off you, then you cut back on spending elsewhere.
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  Speaker 3: And this is just yet another classic example of it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: Stephen, thanks very much as always.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Stephen Topless, BNZ's Head of Research.
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