New Zealand Economy

The New Zealand economy is not very large when compared to other countries in the world. It is however currently one of the most stable economies. This is largely due to the whole Asia Pacific region being the strongest growth area in the world today. We will chat more about that shortly. Let’s first look at the basics.

The currency is the New Zealand Dollar and the country has a nominal GDP of US$128.492 billion compared to South Africa’s US$300.4 billion. That gives you a per capita value of US$33 049 for New Zealand as opposed to US$5693 for South Africa. New Zealand is by all standards a first world, westernised country.

Due to our location compared to the rest of the world, exporting and importing is big business in New Zealand. The biggest export industries are agriculture, horticulture, fishing and forestry. Our biggest company is the dairy giant Fonterra which is a co-operative business consisting of around 10 000 Kiwi farmers. These farmers then produce roughly 30% of the world’s dairy exports.

The New Zealand economy is very dependent on the value of it’s Dollar because of it’s reliance on exports and imports. The problem is however that there is never an optimal value for the Dollar. If it goes too high in value when compared to the US Dollar, then the exporters have a big problem as their profits fall. On the other hand, when the Dollar is high then the goods imported into New Zealand cost less so the retailers and consumers smile.

As far as the country’s growth is concerned it has remained pretty stable during the global economic crisis. This is because the Oz and Chinese economies have been very strong during this time and they are two of our largest trading partners. Also due to China’s staggering growth, the entire Asia Pacific region is being dragged along upward with it.