Debt levels kept down

Retail spending levels have fallen which means the Reserve Bank may be able to delay tightening of monetary policy for longer says BNZ economist Tony Alexander.    

Friday, March 19th 2010, 1:13PM

The BNZ Weekly overview looks at January retail spending data from Statistics New Zealand and says in annualised terms core retail spending has fallen 0.9% over the past three months. This is the worst result for this series since the middle of 2007 when the official cash rate hit 8.25%.

Alexander says clearly there is more to consumer spending decisions than just confidence.

"We think a key element here is that although people expect the economy to improve, they want to keep their debt levels down.

"This increases slightly the chances that the Reserve Bank will be able to delay its tightening of monetary policy until after our current favoured starting date of June 10."

He says with the June forecast in mind, fixing or floating involves tossing a coin.

"Personally I would stay floating. If the tightening starts a tad later, than one definitely stays floating for now."

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