Growth across the economy was "coming from the right places" Finance Minister Bill English told Parliament today.Statistics released this morning showed gross domestic product rose 0.6 percent in the March quarter following an increase of 0.9 pe
Growth across the economy was "coming from the right places" Finance Minister Bill English told Parliament today.
Statistics released this morning showed gross domestic product rose 0.6 percent in the March quarter following an increase of 0.9 percent in the December quarter.
Mr English said the economy had grown by 1.9 percent over the past four quarters since the contraction that began at the start of 2008.
"The continuing recovery, which is broadly aligned with our trading partners, is good news because it helps create new jobs and raise living standards," he said.
"However, there is significant work to do. The economy has only recovered about half the fall it incurred during 2008 and growth is mixed across the sectors."
Mr English said the challenges were to overcome the effects of the recession and rebalance the economy so it relied less on consumption and debt and more on savings and increased productivity.
"There are encouraging signs that the recovery is headed in the right direction and we welcome those," he said.
"The growth across the economy is coming from the right places.
"Government consumption is no longer growing rapidly, export volume growth is the strongest in three years while, overall, tradeable sector output has shown its first sign of sustained growth since 2004."
