WELLINGTON, Jan 16 (Reuters) - New Zealand business sentiment turned negative and sunk to a two-year low in the fourth quarter on pessimism towards the new centre-left government, a private think tank said on Tuesday.
A net 12 percent of firms surveyed expected general business conditions to deteriorate compared with 5 percent who had forecast an improvement the previous quarter, the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research's (NZIER) quarterly survey of business opinion (QSBO) showed.
That was the most downbeat result since September 2015, which NZIER said was largely driven by the Labour-led coalition government taking the helm in October.
NZIER said that historically business confidence dropped when Labour took office and that uncertainty towards the coalition government's new policies was exacerbating the situation.
The survey's measure of capacity utilisation was 92.8 percent, from the previous quarter's 91.3 percent.
(Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by Alison Williams)
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