Building consents, out first this morning, is likely to continue the recent strong trend with a further 2% lift in the total number of dwellings consented.
Westpac chief economist Dominick Stephens said the domestic economy's buoyancy had been led by the burgeoning construction sector.
Originally that was associated with the Canterbury post-earthquake recovery but there were increasing signs construction activity was also picking up in Auckland.
''Growth on consents should continue to be led by Auckland and Canterbury, the regions where housing shortages are most apparent. The detailed consents data suggests that attention is shifting away from the outer regions of Canterbury and towards Christchurch proper, where there is much more work to come.''
Next, the ANZ Business Outlook survey would provide an early assessment of how the summer drought had affected business confidence and domestic economic demand, he said.
It would be reasonable to anticipate a drop in confidence among firms in drought-affected regions while confidence among firms in other regions marched on strongly, Mr Stephens said.
''One theme we do expect the survey to reiterate is low inflation - intentions to raise prices and inflation and expectations are sure to remain subdued.''
The BNZ confidence survey, compiled and published by BNZ chief economist Tony Alexander, showed yesterday that confidence in April was strong at a net 43% compared with 25% in March. Later today the Reserve Bank will release its latest instalment of its credit growth aggregates.
Mr Stephens said consumer credit was expanding steadily alongside the buoyant housing market, and there was no reason to expect a change to that trend.
Business credit growth had been low for most of the past year, reflecting subdued business investment.
Overseas, five years after the onset of the global financial crisis, the world economy remains in such a chronic state that the European Central Bank (ECB) might cut interest rates this week and the Federal Reserve is likely to indicate no let-up in the stimulus it is providing to the United States economy.
Reuters reported momentum was building for the ECB to lower interest rates for the first time since July 2012. If the bank did not act on Thursday, a 0.25% cut in June was considered a certainty. The ECB was the most conservative of the world's main central banks. Its main short-term rate, now at 0.75%, was higher than the equivalent rate of the Fed, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan. Unlike its peers, the ECB had not engaged in quantitative easing - printing new money to buy bonds.
Because the Fed had pledged to stick to its loose monetary policy until unemployment fell to 6.5% from the current 7.6%, the central bank was expected to confirm at this week's policy meeting it would keep buying $US85 billion ($NZ101 billion) in bonds every month to keep bond yields low and encourage investment.
