'NZ economy resilient amid pandemic'

Wellington, March 18 New Zealand's economy remains resilient despite the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, reinforcing steps the government has taken to support and secure the recovery, Deputy Prime Minister said on Thursday.

New Zealand's gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 1.0 per cent in the December 2020 quarter, following a revised 13.9 per cent jump in the September quarter and 11 per cent fall in the quarter before that, the country's statistics department Stats NZ revealed on Thursday.

"It is not surprising that these numbers are jumping around. The world is dealing with the ongoing impact of Covid-19 and there will be volatility for some time," Xinhua news agency quoted Robertson, who is also the Finance Minister, as saying in a statement.

"New Zealand had an extremely strong bounce-back in the September quarter and some of that has evened out in the December quarter," he said, adding that there is also a lot of volatility within sectors in the economy.

The economy was 0.9 per cent below where it was in the December quarter last year.

"Nevertheless, we outperformed the countries we compare ourselves to on this measure."

Australia dropped by 1.1 per cent, the US by 2.4 per cent, the UK by 7.8 per cent and Japan by 1.3 per cent.

These figures show that the overall all size of the economy was NZ$322 billion ($232 billion) in 2020.

This compares favourably with December's Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update forecast of NZ$307 billion ($221 billion).

( With inputs from IANS )