The government's small business loan scheme that bypasses banks in favour of the Inland Revenue Department processing applications is proving far more successful than the earlier business finance guarantee scheme. Revenue and Small Business Minister Stuart Nash said the IRD ha...

Finance Minister Grant Robertson's plan to borrow $60 billion in the 2021 fiscal year needs private investors to come to the party if it's going to be able to fund its huge covid-19 response.    The government's debt programme has been supported by the Reserve Bank's quantitat...

Two cheques are in the mail for New Zealand Post, allocated $130 million from the Budget to help it deliver a viable postal service and a $150 million cash injection from government's Covid Response and Recovery Fund. The funding will allow the state-owned entity to maintain s...

The Commerce Commission, Financial Markets Authority and Serious Fraud Office were among agencies to get a funding boost in today’s budget, addressing not only existing cost pressures but also expanded missions. The commission will get $30.4 million over four years, which Comm...

The Budget will double to 1,400 the number of exporting firms receiving intensive support in offshore markets from New Zealand Trade & Enterprise. Some $32 million would be applied to the Focus programme to achieve that over the next four years, Finance Minister Grant Robertso...

The government will now borrow an extra $50 billion in the June 2021 fiscal year to mitigate the hit from the covid-19 pandemic. The impact of covid-19 on the Crown’s fiscal outlook is “unprecedented” and requires a substantial increase to the forecast borrowing programme rela...

Budget 2020 includes a $400 million targeted tourism recovery fund as the sector struggles to survive the fallout from covid-19. The package “will go over and above the government’s broad-based support of businesses and workers and reflects the importance of tourism to Aotearo...

The Budget includes funding for 8,000 new state-owned houses, more than doubling the current programme to build 6,400 homes for both residential and transitional housing for homeless people. The house-building programme will be delivered buy state housing agency Kainga Ora, an...

The New Zealand economy faces a relatively short and very sharp recession over the coming year before massive government spending kicks into to help stoke growth.

New Zealand’s central bank says the economy could shrink by more than 8 percent in the year to March 2021 and deflation is on the cards for that quarter. And that’s pretty much the best case as the economy grapples to recover from the fallout from covid-19 and measures to stop...