Pro Experts

Shock and Orr Reserve Bank head prepared to make big calls

Currently, it is very difficult to speak of anything but the low interest rates affecting savers and investors. At the time of writing1, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand has taken a breather with its September 2019 announcement and left the Official CashRate(OCR)at 1.00%.After the hefty movement of 0.50% “south” on August 7, this is welcomed in most sectors. The...

New Trust Act – are you prepared?

On 30 July 2019, the Trust Act 2019 received Royal Assent signalling a modernisation of trust legislation that, given the number of trusts in New Zealand, we should all be aware of. The new Act will replace the Trustee Act 1956 and its purpose is to make the law more accessible to both trustees and beneficiaries of trusts. Significantly the...

Property investors predict positive investment conditions

Commercial and industrial property investors see positive investment conditions over the next 12 months in Napier and Hastings, according to the latest Colliers International commercial property investor confidence survey. A net positive (optimists minus pessimists) 25 percent of respondents expect investment conditions to improve over the next 12 months, which was up slightly from the previous 2Q 2019 survey. The...

Policy set to protect productive land

In April 2018, MfE and Stats NZ published the Our land 2018 report, which is a comprehensive assessment of how human activity is affecting the state of New Zealand’s land to date. The report identified two main pressures facing highly productive land on the edge of towns and cities: expansion of urban areas, and the accompanying loss of productive land;...

Revitalising the value of Hastings CBD

Williams’ Harvey undertakes a retail shop occupancy survey of the Central Business District (CBD) of Hastings City. The survey is based on retail shop numbers and considers main street retail, side street retail and overall retail vacancies. Our last survey was completed in October 2018 and recorded 10.20% of the retail space within Hastings to be vacant which equates to...

Drive performance by better understanding the numbers

Hawke’s Bay’s economy is booming. The region is experiencing growth across a range of sectors and industries, unemployment numbers are dropping, house prices continue to rise and there is an air of business confidence within the region which is encouraging business owners to look to their future and what opportunities these positive developments could bring. One of these opportunities is...

Outstanding performance for region’s economy

I’m no expert in economics, but I can see the numbers and it looks good, but what about the future? As much as an economist can look at all economic indicators, I look at it from my frame of reference, how will technology contribute to the Regions growth from 2020 and beyond? The World Economic Forum has identified five areas...

Expanding your business? Proceed carefully …

It’s great to see Hawke’s Bay’s economy steaming ahead and to notice lots of positive signs that our business environment is thriving.As your business improves and demand increases you may be thinking about expanding by hiring new staff. Before you start making offers however there have been a number of changes to employment law recently that you need to be...

Climbing the ladder in the apple industry

The apple industry in Hawke’s Bay is thriving. Looking at 2017 statistics published by the New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research Ltd. since 2015, apple orchards in New Zealand have increased in value by approximately 70 percent. In 2017 New Zealand exported 343,000t of apples (total production of 384,000t). Of which, 70 percent are grown in Hawke’s Bay....

CGT debate over, a flying start to 2019 set to continue

Now that the debate about the introduction of a comprehensive capital gains tax is out of the way, we expect confidence to build further in the commercial property sector over 2019. Starting with such a strong base to grow from, with over $138 million in commercial property sold in 2018, up from $116m the previous year, we knew 2019 would...