Heatley Phil: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHeatley Phil: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 19 November 2013. Volume:695;Page:15062. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]1.Hon PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) to theMinister of Finance: What reports has he received on the economy—and especially on further signs of economic momentum in the regions and among manufacturers?Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Associate Minister of Finance) on behalf of theMinister of Finance: The Minister of Finance has received a number of positive reports providing strong evidence of good momentum in the economy and of improving confidence. This is happening right across New Zealand but particularly in the regions and as it turns out especially in manufacturing. New Zealand’s healthy economic momentum is being recognised by respected international organisations such as the OECD which forecast that New Zealand will be among the strongest developed economies in the world next year with 3.6 percent growth. The Government is supporting these positive developments through its economic programme and especially through the Business Growth Agenda which is focusing on creating the conditions for businesses to invest grow and create new jobs.Hon Phil Heatley: What recent reports has he received confirming that the manufacturing sector is in good heart following a crisis that the sector was in in the mid-2000s?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The Minister has received the BNZ-Business New Zealand Performance of Manufacturing Index for October. The index increased 1.5 points further in October to 55.7. The manufacturing sector has now been expanding for 11 consecutive months and this particular reading was the highest October reading since 2007. The index has actually averaged 56 since the start of 2013 which is very high by world standards. Interestingly it is not just manufacturing; the BNZ-Business New Zealand Performance of Services Index is also at its highest level of activity since November 2007. The contrast between the Performance of Manufacturing Index now and the index in 2008 when it had readings down to 35 shows that the manufacturing sector then was truly in a crisis.Hon Phil Heatley: Has he received any recent reports confirming that regional New Zealand is leading the economic recovery?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: This week the Minister received the ANZ Regional Trends survey. It reported that 12 of the 14 regions reported a lift in economic activity in the September quarter led by Taranaki which has the benefit of course of a vibrant oil and gas industry and also a dairy industry. Year-on-year economic growth accelerated in all but one region and overall growth was the strongest reported since December 2004. It is great to see that Canterbury grew at 6.2 percent in the past year which of course was the strongest in New Zealand. The Opposition failed at talking down the overall economy and it has failed at taking down the regions as well. In fact the regions are lifting New Zealand out of the global financial crisis.Hon Phil Heatley: How is New Zealand’s good economic momentum particularly in the regions and especially in manufacturing translating into more jobs?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: There are good signs that the economic momentum is translating into more jobs. For example the latest household labour force survey showed that employment was up 1.2 percent or 27000 people in the Septemberquarter. There were 53000 more people in work compared with a year earlier. This is despite previous false declarations by some people that there have been crises in manufacturing and crises in the regions and so on. I encourage those two groups to declare a crisis in some other part of the economy as there seems to be a direct inverse correlation between those that declare a crisis and a subsequent resurgence in the sector that they have declared to be in crisis.