Parker David: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParker David: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 12 June 2013. Volume:691;Page:11043. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]4.Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour)to theMinister of Finance: Does he stand by his statement “There’s going to be a lot of jobs a high level of activity for the next three or four years that’s picking up speed now. But it does divert us a bit from the need to rebalance the economy and that is get our capital and our people and the export earnings sector”; if so how many jobs will be created in the export sector over the next three or four years?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance):Yes I do stand by my statement which was following on from a statement I made where I directly attributed that level of activity to the Canterbury rebuild. The Canterbury rebuild will cost $40 billion and most of this activity will be in the non-tradable sector. The necessity of rebuilding Christchurch is redirecting capital and people who would otherwise be available to an increasingly resilient and competitive export sector. This will put some pressure on the share of the economy that is in the tradable sector. On the second part of the question I am advised by Treasury that there is no forecast of export jobs. What I can tell the member is that exports have increased 16 percent in the last 3 years and we are looking forward to continued expansion of the export sector after it went into recession in early 2008.Hon David Parker: Is his own department forecasting exports to decline in value by 2.8 percent in the year to March 2014?Hon BILL ENGLISH: That may well be the figure that Treasury is using which I understand is driven by a view about declining terms of trade. Treasury has expressed I think correctly a concern that the persistent high level of the dollar up until about 3 weeks ago has made it difficult for exporters to be profitable and therefore to be able to reinvest in the expansion of the export sector. However in the face of those difficulties our exporters have proven to be remarkably resilient. They have continued to grow exports. It is the Government’s view that it would be very helpful to the export sector if the currency declined somewhat in value.Hon David Parker: Is it also correct that under current settings excluding primary processing manufactured exports have declined by 17 percent in real terms since 2008 with thousands of job losses?Hon Steven Joyce: So we’re trying to exclude areas that have grown as always.Hon BILL ENGLISH: That is right—as my colleague Steven Joyce has pointed out if you exclude the areas of manufacturing that have grown then you are probably going to show that the other ones did not grow. [Interruption ]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have called the Hon David Parker for a supplementary question.Hon David Parker: Why is the Minister so sanguine about a forecast of 2.8 percent overall export decline in the year ending March 2014 on the back of a 17 percent decline in manufacturing exports since 2008 outside the primary sector?Hon BILL ENGLISH: It is not a matter of being sanguine; it is a matter of sticking to a plan that we believe will support our resilient export sector when it has been through a difficult time. It is not a surprise that when the currency has been at record highs some exporters have found that too hard including in the manufacturing sector. Others have been able to adapt to it or change their markets so the sector as a whole has grown. The Government’s Business Growth Agenda is a series of up to 300 initiatives all designed to support our businesses to make the decision to invest and employ. In the context of a difficult global economy a recession—the largest in a generation—and the damage wreaked by the last Labour Government that sector is doing pretty well.Hon David Parker: Does he agree that the flat projections for exports some real problems in some sub-sectors of exports like manufactured exports outside of primary processing and the fact that the current account deficit is projected by his department to get worse every year until 2017 show that he has failed to rebalance the economy?Hon BILL ENGLISH: No. If the member is going to insist on debating the current account deficit today then despite all the difficulties I have pointed out the current account deficit stands at half the level it was for the final term of the Labour Government when it enjoyed the best economic circumstances in a generation. Today the current account deficit is half the level than when it reached record levels of 8.6 percent. The previous Labour Government could not have done a worse job than it did.