Cautious pessimism has taken hold among world leaders about the prospects for the global economy, Finance Minister Bill English says.
Finance Minister Bill English Photo: RNZ / Diego Opatowski
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned emerging economies are vulnerable to capital outflows should the United States Federal Reserve press on and raise rates next year as expected.
Mr English, who attended the IMF gathering in Washington last week, said that could hurt New Zealand's trade.
However, the economy was resilient enough to cope, he said.
"We'll have to keep an eye out for that but we are in a pretty good position.
"We've got pretty good resilience and our prospects for 2-3 percent growth over the next three or four years I think is still the right track, despite a bit of pessimism about other markets."
The IMF said bold action was needed to counteract slow growth, and reiterated calls for governments to make it easier to hire and fire labour, raise the retirement age and invest more in infrastructure.
Mr English many countries had no other options left, and there could be adjustments for emerging economies when the US Federal Reserve started raising interest rates.
