And now for the Good news….
Is there any good news from the events of the past few months? What an extraordinary series of events. The World financial markets ‘melting down’.
As a provincial economy we should be under no illusions. The events unfolding at the moment will have a negative impact on our economy and employment growth. It also appears that the Impact of the ‘crisis’ will last longer than the 1 or 2 year short term. It is little relief or consolation to be reminded that downturns and restrictions in business are always cyclical regardless of whether it is labelled a market meltdown, sharemarket crash or Asian economic crisis. At a recent Northland Chamber of Commerce BA5 Don Low from Plan B financial services talked about the cyclical nature of the markets, the importance of diversity and having a long term approach to investing.
Recently we heard from our members regarding their outlook or ‘confidence’ over the coming six months. The biggest constraint to growth for our members was a drop off in demand for their products and access to bank finance due to credit restrictions being tightened. The tightening of credit will mean that expansion and growth will slowdown. Having said these members were also more optimistic about their own and the economic prospects in the medium future. It may be a god time to recap the paper produced in May this year which outlined the 10 best reasons for doing business in Northland available from our website at www.northchamber.co.nz
At the same time of all this turmoil our country is gearing up for a general election. This has refocused political parties and forced them to talk about the economy.
The Chamber of Commerce would encourage lawmakers to implement policy to maintain consumer confidence, increase effectiveness of state budget spending, cut income tax and speed up the development of infrastructure projects. It is pleasing to see some talk heading in this direction
Some notable political events from the past few weeks.
- The Prime Minister announcing a guarantee to bank deposits. (Unsure if this was an election promise or was going to happen regardless of an election). Probably the biggest banking news in NZ – ever! Lucky the dodgy finance companies have already collapsed
- The incumbent political party talking about bringing forward investment in Rail, Road, School and Sewerage to support employment. If there is one thing over the past 10 years it’s the lack of investment in physical infrastructure. This seems to have placed a distant third place behind increasing the size of the Government and Compliance for Small / Medium sized businesses.
- The opposition party introducing Tax Cuts as an election promise and indicating that the size of Government needs to be pruned..
By the time this article is published 48 hours will have passed. The only one thing that is guaranteed over the next 48 hours is that the situation will have changed due to volatility and the ever increasing uncertain nature prevalent today.
The Northland Chamber of Commerce is the networking, education, advocacy and marketing group for Northland business, and is part of a nationwide network of 30 and a world-wide movement of 21,000 chambers. Subscription to the free fortnightly chamber e-news can be arranged on
You can have a say on this by going to the Northland Chamber of Commerce Feedback website on www.northchamber.blogspot.com
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