Why is New Zealand manufacturing booming?

The New Zealand PMI was out this morning and its manufacturing sector is booming at 57.7:

Moreover, since the GFC it has basically followed the trends in other developed economies, slowing during the euro paralysis but otherwise growing firmly throughout.

I know the economy is booming too but at the very least this throws a spanner into the works of the oft-cited and intellectually lazy platitude rolled out by Australian economists that manufacturing is doomed in all developed markets.

NZ has high house prices and a high currency, why is it’s manufacturing sector so robust?

Anyone know?

Share

About the author

David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.