The annual balance sheets release provides estimates of assets, liabilities and net worth held by New Zealand institutional sectors, such as businesses, households and government, and the economy as a whole at a point in time.

Institutional sector balance sheets are useful to policy agencies and financial institutions for

• economic and fiscal planning,

• understanding how and what finance has been used to invest in productive assets, and

• monitoring structural changes in the economy that have been brought about by events affecting asset volatility, such as the global financial crisis.