Geoff Bascand: Supporting sustainable economic growth through financial stability policy

Speech by Mr Geoff Bascand, Deputy Governor and General Manager of Financial Stability of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, to the Citi Australia and New Zealand Investment Conference, Sydney, 16 October 2019.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

Good morning everyone,

My thanks to Citi for the invitation for me to come here today and speak with you all - it's a pleasure to be here.

Today I'm going to start by setting the scene to give you an understanding of where the Reserve Bank of New Zealand is currently at in achieving both price and financial stability, and I'm also going to outline the risks that New Zealand is exposed to in a local and global environment.

Setting the scene

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand's purpose is to promote the prosperity and wellbeing of New Zealanders, and contribute to a sustainable and productive economy. For this speech I want to mostly focus on how we promote sustainability by delivering on our objectives: price stability, maximum sustainable employment, and financial stability, and the tools we apply to help keep the economy productive.

Over the past thirty years, we have seen economic volatility decline following the introduction of inflation targeting, with prices becoming more stable and remaining at relatively lower levels.