NZ least concerned about recession

By Phil Boeyen, ShareChat Business News Editor

Tuesday 12th March 2002

A consumer survey of eight Asia Pacific countries shows New Zealanders are the least likely to think they are about to enter a world recession.

The quarterly online survey of 8,000 mostly professionals found that while 45% of the New Zealanders surveyed felt a world recession was imminent, the figure was considerably lower that the 63% of Australians who felt that way.

"The feeling amongst Asian populations was even more marked," says ACNielsen marketing director, Jocelyn Hong.

"Over 80% of respondents in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore felt they were entering a world recession."

Ms Hong says that overall, respondents felt the recession would be long term.

"Only 48% felt the recovery would occur by the end of 2002. The large Chinese and Japanese markets were the most pessimistic as to when the recovery would occur with just 35% and 22% expecting a recovery to occur by the end of 2002."

ACNielsen believes the survey has sobering implications for consumer purchasing, with over 40% of respondents in the Asia Pacific region saying they have deferred making any major purchases in the past six months and 43% planning to put off buying any major purchases in the next six months.

"Once again, New Zealand consumers were the least likely of the eight countries to put off making any major purchases," says Ms Hong.

"Only 18% of New Zealanders surveyed have deferred making major purchasing decisions in the past six months and 24% plan to defer buying major purchases in the next six months."

Respondents in the survey said they would put off buying a variety of high value goods such as property, motor vehicles, and stocks and shares, as well as consumer technology products such as PCs, cameras and mobile phones.

The survey also asked people about future travel plans in the wake of September 11 and found only 9% of New Zealanders were likely to change their plans to travel internationally in the next six months compared with 13% of Australians, 24% of those from South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan and 37% of Chinese.

The survey, known as the ACNielsen regional online omnibus, is a quarterly syndicated online consumer survey, gathering information from regular users of the internet across Asia Pacific.

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