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The Reserve Bank of Australia kept its cash rate unchanged at 3 percent as expected and said it sees room to cut interest rates if needed as inflation remains low. “With inflation likely to be consistent with the target, and with growth likely to be a little below trend over the coming year, an accommodative stance of monetary policy is …

South Island mining OceanaGold Corp is refusing to pay for diesel it bought from Z Energy, which charged for the fuel based on a higher cost of the emissions trading scheme than the New Zealand-owned company actually pays. Z’s lawyers agreed in court the company had charged more than it paid for carbon costs under the ETS, but that there …

The New Zealand gained against its Australian counterpart after the Reserve Bank of Australia kept interest rates on hold, while leaving a future cut on the table if slowing growth and inflation get out of hand. The kiwi rose to 80.88 Australian cents at 5pm in Wellington from 80.66 cents immediately before the announcement, and down from 81.10 cents yesterday. …

Golden State Foods, the biggest US supplier of ingredients to fast-food giant McDonald’s, has bought Wellington-based Groenz Group, adding sauces and condiments to a range that includes the original Big Mac sauce. No price or financials were disclosed in the statement from Irvine, California-based Golden State, which services more than 25,000 fast-food outlets around the world for some 50 companies. …

Capital + Merchant Finance directors Robert Sutherland and Colin Ryan have both pleaded guilty to charges of making untrue statements in offer documents and will be sentenced in Auckland next month. The Australia-based pair admitted two charges of making an untrue statement in a registered prospectus and one charge of distributing advertisements which included an untrue statement, market watchdog the …

Auckland real estate firm Barfoot & Thompson’s new listings more than doubled in January from December while the average sale price fell, suggesting the city’s overheated property market is luring more sellers. Auckland’s biggest real estate firm listed 1,440 properties in January, the highest for that month in five years and up 40 percent from January 2012. The firm had …

Cash market trades on the NZX jumped by 33 percent in January from the same month last year, driven by share transactions. Total trades rose to 69,281 and the value of trading rose 66 percent to $2.3 billion, NZX said in its monthly shareholder metrics. The average daily value of trading rose 51 percent to $106 million. The NZX 50 …

New Zealand labour costs rose in line with expectations in the final three months of 2012 as the gathering pace of Canterbury’s reconstruction effort saw the building and construction sector underpin gains. Private sector salary and ordinary time wages rose 0.5 percent in the three months ended Dec. 31, as expected, and maintaining the same pace of growth from a …

The New Zealand dollar rose against the euro as European political reports renewed concerns about the region’s debt crisis and pushed the common currency down from a two-year high against the greenback. The New Zealand dollar rose to 62.49 euro cents from 62.03 cents at 5pm in Wellington yesterday. It traded at 84.46 US cents from 84.55 cents. The euro …

Stocks on both sides of the Atlantic dropped as concern about Europe’s political and financial instability returned, and Wall Street’s five-year highs left investors with vertigo in the absence of signs to justify current valuations. The latest American economic report also disappointed. Orders to US factories advanced 1.8 percent in December after a revised 0.3 percent slide the prior month, …