New Zealand finance minister sees inflation easing but no quick drop

By Lucy Craymer

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - New Zealand's finance minister Grant Robertson said on Tuesday that inflation is likely to moderate but it won't be a quick drop back to the levels that people are used to seeing.

"The global economy is a tough place to be at the moment. There are still issues coming out of Europe, obviously with the war in Ukraine, issues in China," Robertson said in an interview on state-owned TVNZ.

"This is a difficult period, but we are looking to see inflation start to trend down from this quarter onwards."

He added while things have been tough, there's every reason to be optimistic about the New Zealand economy because it has done pretty well up to this point.

(Reporting by Lucy Craymer; Editing by Kim Coghill)