WELLINGTON, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- The New Zealand government on Friday welcomed an international ratings agency's credit and foreign currency ratings as a vote of confidence in the national economy.
Standard and Poor's (S&P) decision to affirm the AA foreign currency and AA+ local currency sovereign credit ratings with a stable outlook reflected international confidence in New Zealand's economic and fiscal performance, Finance Minister Steven Joyce said in a statement.
"The assessment released by S&P today confirms the increasing resilience of New Zealand's economy as we head into 2017," said Joyce.
"S&P noted an improved outlook for New Zealand's current account deficit and an improving forecast for our net government debt," he said.
"The agency also noted their expectations that New Zealand's fiscal performance will continue to improve over the medium term - and that remains the government's clear intention."
The country was well placed to deal with any issues as they arose despite significant uncertainty about the world economy in the year ahead, he said.
The ratings affirmation followed signs of growing business confidence in the last quarter of 2016, according to a survey by an independent economic think-tank out Tuesday.
Business confidence remained high at the end of last year, with a net 26 percent of businesses expecting an improvement in economic conditions in coming month, said the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research.
