NZ economy experiencing ‘growth stall’

Interest rates could be set for further falls with ANZ bank revising its forecasts and saying it expected the official cash rate to fall to just 0.25 per cent by May.

That meant there was some chance house prices could ‘‘take off again’’, it said.

The bank said in an update that the outlook for economic growth and inflation were continuing to deteriorate and it now expected the Reserve Bank to make 25-basis-point cuts to the OCR in November, February and May.

The Reserve Bank surprised analysts by lopping a half-per cent off the OCR last month, bringing the rate down to 1 per cent.

ANZ counted seven reasons why it thought the Reserve Bank would put the ‘‘pedal to the metal’’ with further interest rate cuts.

Near-term domestic growth indicators were deteriorating, inflation expectations were slipping, the ‘‘global environment’’ was continuing to deteriorate, and Australia was now expected to cut its cash rate in three tranches to 0.25 per cent in May, it said.

Compounding that, jobs ads appeared to be falling, the outlook for the dairy sector was ‘‘troubling’’, and the Reserve Bank’s plan to raise the capital requirements of major banks would have ‘‘more significant impacts on both the price and availability of credit’’ than the Reserve Bank anticipated, it said.

‘‘It’s not an exaggeration to say that it is pretty much one-way traffic out there.

‘‘The only easily identifiable ‘upward risk’ at present is that the housing market could take off again in response to the record-low mortgage and term deposit rates,’’ ANZ said.

The bank said there was ‘‘no fundamental reason for the economy to go into recession, and the Reserve Bank is doing everything it can to make sure it doesn’t’’.

But the country was experiencing ‘‘a growth stall’’.