Christian Hawkesby: The global economy and New Zealand

Speech by Mr Christian Hawkesby, Assistant Governor and General Manager of Economics, Financial Markets, and Banking of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, to the Goldman Sachs Annual Global Macro Conference 2020, Sydney, 29 January 2020.

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

Introduction

Tēnā koutou katoa.

Thank you for inviting me to speak at this conference on a topic that is so relevant to a small open economy like New Zealand: the global economy.

Before re-joining the Reserve Bank of New Zealand in March last year, I attended this conference a number of times, so appreciate its role in helping investors consider the global outlook across major regions as the year begins.

As global investors, you are already well-informed on the state of the global economy. But I hope to add value by sharing two main insights:

• outlining the framework we use at the Reserve Bank to analyse the global economy and its influence on New Zealand, and
• applying this framework to the developments over 2019, and the risks into 2020.

As our Monetary Policy Committee will begin meeting next week for the first time since November, my remarks will largely focus on how we think about the global economy, and do not represent the formal view of the Committee.