Inflation cut foreseen

Press, 24 August 1976, Page 3

Inflation cut foreseen

■ PA Wellington The Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) hopes to have New Zealand’s inflation rate i down to 2.5 per cent in the !fourth quarter of this year. I At a press conference | tonight he said he believed I that the last six months of 11976 might be the country’s last chance to get a grasp “on domestic inflation” before there was a surge in import prices. “I want to see a fourth quarter of 2.5 per cent inflation or lers. This would mean going into the New Year with an inflation rate of 10 per cent or less in a full year.”

The oil price outlook did l

not look hopeful for the New Year and there had been warnings of other price increases early in 1977.

“A great deal will depend on what happens after the United States election. And there are a number of other elections coming up in countries like Japan.” Mr Muldoon said postelection years tended to be the ones in which tough economic measures were taken. He said he had been emphasising to the Federation of Labour and other groups that it was because of the prospect of a further surge in imported inflation that he was determined to make the Government’s !wage freeze “stick.”