New Zealand Business Confidence largely unchanged – ANZ

WELLINGTON (Reuters) – New Zealand’s business confidence was largely unchanged in March as firms are wary but hanging in there, ANZ Bank said in a note on Tuesday accompanying its business confidence survey.

The survey’s headline measure showed a net 43.4% of respondents expected the economy to deteriorate over the year ahead versus a 43.3% pessimism level in the previous poll in February.

A net 8.5% of respondents expected their own businesses to shrink in the next 12 months versus 9.2% last month who saw contraction coming.

“Though it’s early days, you’d have to say things do look like a soft landing – activity indicators are subdued but off the floor, labour market tightness is starting to shift, and inflation and cost indicators are very gradually easing,” ANZ said.

(Reporting by Lucy Craymer; Editing by Himani Sarkar)