Price pressures easing across the economy: QSBO

Price pressures easing across the economy: QSBO
Retailers showed a surprising jump in optimism about the year ahead in December. (Image: Getty)
Pattrick Smellie
Businesses’ willingness to raise prices decreased significantly at the end of last year, at the same time as optimism improved markedly for trading conditions in the year ahead.Those were key findings of the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research’s (NZIER) quarterly survey of business opinion (QSBO) for December.Economists watched pricing intentions closely in this latest survey as a harbinger of whether and how swiftly the Reserve Bank of NZ (RBNZ) might consider cutting interest rates from their current high point.Demand const...

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