WELLINGTON (Reuters) - New Zealand business confidence remained downbeat in the final quarter of 2018, but "less gloomy" than the previous quarter when it sunk to a nine-year low, a private think tank said on Tuesday.
A net 17 percent of firms surveyed expected general business conditions to deteriorate over the coming months compared with 30 percent in the previous quarter, the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research's (NZIER) quarterly survey of business opinion (QSBO) showed.
"We summarise the result as less gloomy rather than more happy," NZIER principal economist Christina Leung said in a statement releasing the data.
The survey's measure of capacity utilisation was 92.8 percent, from the previous quarter's 93.2 percent.
(Reporting by Praveen Menon; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
