Business

Current account deficit tipped to narrow

11:33 am on 17 March 2014

Economists expect the current account deficit to have narrowed sharply in the December quarter.

The market consensus is that the deficit for the 2013 calendar year narrowed to between 3.3 percent and 3.4 percent of annual economic growth.

For the 12 months to September it was 4.1 percent.

The deficit for the three months to December narrowed to about $1.4 billion compared with nearly $4.8 billion in the September quarter.

ASB Bank chief economist Nick Tuffley says dairy exports have been particularly strong in the fourth quarter, so the rebound from drought in the third quarter resulted in a lot of production, some of which got stockpiled.

He says over the fourth quarter some of that dairy stockpile was exported which produced a very solid trade performance for that quarter.

Economists are expecting latest statistics will show the economy grew 0.9 percent in the three months to December.

That will take annual growth to 2.7 percent.

Nick Tuffley says he expects the December quarter result will have been much more broad-based than the September quarter outcome.

He says there has been reasonable consumer spending, manufacturing edged up and there was some modest growth in construction, as well as a broad based lift in a number of service sectors such as transport, financial and business sectors and professional services.