1. Question No. 1—FinanceDr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn) to the Minister of FinanceORAL QUESTIONSQUESTIONS TO MINISTERSQuestion No. 1—Finance1. Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has he seen on the New Zealand economy?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): The latest BNZ-Business New Zealand Performance of Manufacturing Index (PMI) released on Friday showed the manufacturing sector bounced back in June after a tough period since March due to the lockdown restrictions. The sector expanded with a reading of 56.3 up 16.5 points from May. This was boosted by strong readings for production and new orders both at 58.6. While employment in the sector remains in contraction with a reading of 47.8 the significant lift since May means that lay-offs are slowing. Compared to our international counterparts New Zealand's overall PMI reading was significantly higher than in Australia China the UK the US the eurozone and Japan. While there are indeed tough times for many firms this is a pleasing sign that the manufacturing sector is now beginning to experience the benefits of our collective efforts to go hard and early squash the curve and reopen our economy as one of the least restricted in the world.Dr Deborah Russell: What recent reports has he seen on the performance of the services sector of the New Zealand economy?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The June BNZ-Business New Zealand Performance of Services Index (PSI) was released yesterday showing the services sector also bounced back strongly in June. The sector expanded with a PSI reading of 54.1 up 16.6 points since May. There are also encouraging signs in the activity and sales measures jumping up to 58.7 and new orders up to 59.6. As in the PMI the employment indicator lifted but remains at 45.1. Compared with international counterparts New Zealand's PSI was better than that of Australia the UK the US the eurozone and Japan who all saw contractionary readings for June. This is a further signal that our decision to go hard and early with our health response was also the best thing to do from an economic perspective. Because we have a more open economy our industries are expanding faster than the rest of the world.Dr Deborah Russell: What reports has he seen on confidence in the New Zealand economy?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Last week Mind Your Own Business (MYOB) released a snapshot report on small to medium sized enterprise (SME) business confidence across New Zealand. The report showed confidence amongst SMEs is cautiously improving and more businesses are expecting to see growth in the next 12 months following from March when the economy was heading into lockdown. In addition MYOB ran a comparison of their New Zealand and Australian SME surveys this month. This showed that more SMEs in New Zealand expect improvement in the economy over the next year than in Australia and slightly fewer New Zealand SMEs expect business to get worse over the year compared to Australian SMEs and it also showed that more New Zealand SMEs thought revenue would increase over the year than those in Australia. This is yet another example of how the Government's work along with the team of 5 million to keep the virus under control has meant that Kiwi firms can now operate in a more open and certain environment while other countries continue to vary their level of restrictions and struggle to contain the virus.