Deficit ‘an aberration’

Press, 1 September 1982, Page 6

Deficit ‘an aberration’

NZPA staff correspondent London New Zealand's latest overseas exchange transaction figures, showing an increased deficit, were an “aberration,” said the Prime Minister, Mr Muldoon, last evening.

“The analysis that has been given to me by officials is that it is an aberration which will correct itself subsequently,” he said. “There may be — and I have not had sufficient detail to know this — an aberration in respect of last July. "Whenever you get a big difference between the same months in two years you look at both years to see whether the figure for last year was

smaller than it should have been.

“But the figure this year is clearly much bigger than it should have been on an annual basis.” Mr Muldoon said that some of the reasons were apparent in a message he had received from Wellington but he did not want to go into the details at a distance in London.

On the comment by the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Rowling, that the economy was in danger of sliding away. Mr Muldoon said, “I would not take very much notice of what he would say on a subject such as this because obviously he has not got the details.”