WELLINGTON: New Zealand business sentiment improved further in February with investment and employment intentions going up, a preliminary ANZ Bank survey showed on Thursday.

The survey's headline measure showed a net 11.8% of respondents expected the economy to improve over the year ahead compared with a net 9.4% in the previous poll in December last year.

A net 22.3% of respondents expected their own businesses to grow in the next 12 months, compared with 21.7% in the previous survey.