There will be little to surprise financial markets in the New Zealand gross national product (GDP) figures due out tomorrow.
The Reserve Bank has already acknowledged the country is in recession and the GDP figures for June will confirm that recession continues to haunt the economy.
ASB Bank chief economist Nick Tuffley said the Reserve Bank was expecting another decline in GDP in the third quarter.
"After delivering a surprising and rather aggressive 0.5% cut in the official cash rate in September, there is little more the Reserve Bank can do to help growth.
They have already started to front load the policy easing and now will be watching and waiting for the pipeline effects to kick in."
While GDP typically had the potential to be a market mover, any surprise would be swamped by the current international finance market turmoil.
For monetary policy, a greater concern was the potential for increased pressure on international borrowing costs, he said.
Recent developments further endorsed the bold action already taken by the central bank.
ASB expected another 0.5% cut in the OCR to come in October and believed the chance of an encore cut in December was rising.
ASB expected the OCR to be cut eventually to 6.5%, although if funding costs remained elevated, the central bank might attempt to offset those pressures with a lower cash rate, Mr Tuffley said.
Westpac chief economist Brendan O'Donovan said New Zealand GDP data felt like old news at the best of times as it refers to economic activity from three to six months ago.
"Recent developments on world financial markets add considerable weight to this feeling this time around.
"The international financial landscape is particularly fluid at present, with the economic implications far from clear.
"Still, confirmation that New Zealand was in recession in the first half of 2008 will do little to calm investors' nerves."
GDP measures total output produced in an economy during a period.
GDP is measured on a quarterly basis and released towards the end of the next quarter.
It provides a reasonably comprehensive measure of activity within the economy, but the long delay in compilation and release tends to negate the importance of the actual data release.
