Freight rise indicative of recovery

AUCKLAND: Roadfreight movements have rebounded to their best levels in a year, suggesting the economy is recovering from the worst of the lockdowns.

ANZ Bank’s monthly Truckometer shows heavy traffic movements, a realtime measure of current activity, lifted 4.1% in September.

The volume of light traffic, which points six months ahead, rose about 12%.

ANZ said in its report the data showed a ‘‘story of resilience’’.

‘‘We’re certainly seeing quite a lot of volatility in the traffic and that is, of, course related to the fact we went into lockdown again in August, albeit in a regionalised and in a less severe way than in March and April, but it was definitely enough to be seen in the traffic volumes,’’ ANZ chief economist Sharon Zollner said.

She said the summer months would provide a real test for the economy, as wage subsidies started to wind down, the first wave of the mortgagedeferral schemes came to an end and the loss of international tourism at the usual peak season hit hard.

‘‘But the ANZ Truckometer is consistent with the preliminary ANZ Business Outlook for October. . . indicating that the economy, for now at least, has regained momentum, albeit in a slightly stopstart way due to Covid briefly reemerging.’’ — RNZ