July 20, 2020
WELLINGTON (Reuters) – New Zealand’s economy is currently doing better than predicted due to the country’s early economic and health response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the finance minister said on Monday.
“The economy is doing better than expected and is more open than anywhere else in the world,” Grant Robertson said in a news conference.
Robertson also said NZ$14 billion ($9.16 billion) from a COVID Response and Recovery Fund that was announced in the annual budget earlier this year will now be set aside in the event the country experiences a second wave of infections.
(Reporting by Praveen Menon; Editing by Himani Sarkar)