New Zealand’s inflation data gap leaves the RBNZ alone among its peers

New Zealand is set to become the only OECD country not to release a monthly inflation report, and while battling the fastest rate of inflation in a generation, the central bank has no plans to do so even though it wants more timely data.

Statistics Australia announced last month that it would begin publishing a monthly consumer price index from October, but Statistics New Zealand had no current plans to do so, a spokeswoman said. This leaves New Zealand as the last member of the 38-nation OECD to still rely on quarterly data, meaning there is a three-month gap between its inflation reports.

“Inflation is more important now than it has been in a long time,” said Sharon Zollner, chief New Zealand economist at ANZ Bank in Auckland. “If there was ever a time for monthly CPI, it’s now.”

More timely data will help the Reserve Bank assess price pressures when it decides what to do with interest rates every six weeks. The Bank’s next monetary policy review is on October 5, but third-quarter inflation data will not be released until October 18.

In 2013, Statistics New Zealand commissioned an independent advisory panel to consider ways to improve the CPI. One of his suggestions was to submit a monthly report, which he said should be given “higher priority”, but nothing came of it.

In a statement to the RBNZ board, it said the monthly CPI would “allow for more timely information on the monetary policy process” and “enhance research in areas of international comparison importance such as the real exchange rate”.

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“Our position has not changed,” an RBNZ spokesman said. The bank is expected to say more about the option of monthly CPI in a consultation paper for a review of its monetary policy mandate later this year, it said.

A Statistics New Zealand spokeswoman said funding was part of the reason it did not produce a monthly report.

“Doing monthly CBI would require additional resources which we don’t have,” he said.

Statistics Minister David Clarke added that resource constraints meant monthly data was not currently possible.

“Though there is no plan to do monthly CBI at this time, I am open to further discussion on the matter,” he said.