Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Late last week, Standard & Poor's (S & P) global ratings released a report on the economic outlook for the Asia-Pacific region. The S & P report said that economies that flattened COVID-19 curves quickly and launched substantial and well-targeted stimulus—like New Zealand—are expected to escape with less permanent economic damage. S & P Asia-Pacific chief economist Shaun Roache said, "New Zealand definitely is one of those economies that has exited the most severe periods of the pandemic first, and that clearly was just because what that allows the economy to do is reopen so those face-to-face service activities that are so important for the labour market, and that hopefully should get jobs restarted and people can go back to work." While our economy continues to face challenges from COVID-19, the S & P forecast shows that our decision to go hard and early with our health response, combined with our significant investments to protect businesses and jobs, will help stimulate the economy and speed up the recovery. 