Wellington, Sept 14 NZPA - Retail sales figures slipped back in July, following strong results in June, sending the New Zealand dollar plummeting nearly half a cent against the greenback.

Wellington, Sept 6 NZPA - Disaster plans for share brokers, as required by NZX, worked well in the aftermath of the 7.1 magnitude earthquake which struck the city at the weekend, says one leading Christchurch broker.

Wellington, April 15 NZPA - Ratings agency Standard & Poor's says ratings on Christchurch airport could be lowered if it failed to achieve adequate tariff increases from airlines.

Wellington, Feb 9 NZPA - Online job site Seek is reporting a continuing rise in job adverts, led by Auckland, with ads rising at a faster rate than applicants.

Wellington, Jan 18 NZPA - The national median house price rose $5000 from November to a December record $360,000 last month, but the real estate industry is concerned that the number of sales for the month failed to top 5000.

Wellington, Dec 7 NZPA - Property values have risen 4.1 percent off their low in April 2009 but are still 5.9 percent below the market peak in late 2007, according to QV Valuation. Property values in November were 1 percent above last year and 0.2 percent above last month.

Wellington, May 13 NZPA - Lower interest rates and more affordable property prices are boosting activity in the property market, according to real estate agent Harcourts. Harcourts said it wrote an average 44 percent more sales in April than in the same month last year.

Wellington, April 24 NZPA - The Government announced two new appointments to the Reserve Bank's board of directors today.

Wellington, July 23 NZPA - Two accommodation businesses of embattled entrepreneur Dave Henderson have been placed in receivership at the request of the project financiers.

Wellington, July 19 NZPA - The chief executive of financially-troubled Australian property group Octaviar has threatened to place the crumbling empire in liquidation if creditors -- including New Zealand finance company Pacific Finance -- owed more than $A1 billion do not support a payout of A22