NZ Parliamentary Report Warns on Oil Shock

A new report by a parliamentary researcher in New Zealand has warned that the country will be exposed to supply crunches and price spikes. It noted that low-cost reserves around the world are being rapidly depleted and that a supply crunch could start as soon as 2012.

A passage from the report which has some relevance to Singapore is as follows:

"Key export-generating industries in the New Zealand economy, including tourism and timber, dairy and meat exports are very vulnerable to oil shocks because of their reliance on affordable international transport."

Like New Zealand, we are also heavily dependent on tourism and trade, and thus rises in the cost of international transportation will affect our economy adversely.