General commodity prices continued their steady decline, while oil prices were relatively low. Overall, there has been a large gap between the commodity prices enjoyed by New Zealand’s exporters  5 See Callaghan, Cassino, Vehbi, & Wong (2019). 6 See Sullivan & Aldridge (2011).
The second risk comes from the US Fed’s future policy rate actions. At its meeting in December 2016, when the Fed raised its target rate for the first time for the year, the Fed indicated that it would raise rates three more times in 2017.