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NZ economy doing well

By Lawrence Johnston

NEW Zealand's current prosperity is highlighted by economic growth of about four per cent a year and the world's lowest jobless rate among OECD countries of 3.6 per cent. Also, post 9/11 the country is considered a safe place to live.

That image has also helped to increase tourism from Asia, the US, Canada and Europe, and particularly from the UK.

More than 96 per cent of New Zealand's schools are state run, and the country has a good health system. Of particular note is the accident compensation system. New Zealanders who have an accident are treated free from the moment they have the accident till the moment they are declared fit.

Counter balancing that is a no fault scheme which means that you can't sue. As new New Zealand High Commissioner to the UK, Jonathan Hunt said: "It's a big advantage and widely considered an excellent scheme."

Housing in Auckland and Wellington is more expensive than in some of the provincial centres, like New Plymouth, Napier, Palmerston North, and on South Island places like Invercargill, Dunedin and Nelson. In such places there is good reasonable affordable housing, particularly in view of the favourable exchange rate.

Those bringing in their money from the UK are likely to be able to afford a good quality home.

A major plus for New Zealand is how easy it is to obtain money from a bank cash machine.

New Zealand's cash machines have the reputation of being as frequent and as easy to use as anywhere in the world, and Mr Hunt said he had found the UK ones much more difficult to operate.

"That may be because in New Zealand we only have a population of four million, but perhaps it's because we introduced the technology a little later than some countries so we have more sophisticated equipment," he said.