The Reserve Bank governor Allan Bollard must be a satisfied man going into his final monetary policy statement of the year next Thursday.
His aggressive round of interest rate cuts that started in July last year has successfully propped up the New Zealand economy and helped get it out of recession.
After getting rates down to a record of low of 2.5% in April this year, he has since kept rates on hold and pledged to keep doing so until the second half of next year - a strategy seen as necessary and justifiable given the bumpy and fragile nature of New Zealand's recovery.
His main task this year has been about managing market expectations of future interest rates hikes.
Not an easy task given the surging housing market and strong immigration, and early on there were doubts in markets about his commitment to keeping rates low.
However, after some jawboning, those doubts have been successfully put to bed and markets have calmed down.
So, on the interest rate score at least, Dr Bollard has had a pretty successful year. On Thursday one would expect he will again stick to his strategy of no change until mid to late next year.
The commentary accompanying the decision will of course be picked over for any change in language.
However, I wouldn't expect to see any major semantic shifts, although the accompanying growth and unemployment forecasts in the Monetary Policy Statement could make for interesting reading.
While there have been a few critics of Dr Bollard's strategy in 2009, with some suggesting he is underestimating the strength of New Zealand's rebound, mostly he seems to have won applause for his strategy.
But then in some ways that's not surprising.
As the Wall Street Journal recently noted, central bankers are usually popular (in particular with politicians) when they are cutting interest rates or keeping them low.
However, 2010 is likely to be a much more uncomfortable year for central bankers around the world, including Dr Bollard, as they will likely have to start withdrawing monetary stimulus.
In fact, according to the Wall Street Journal, that's a task US Fed Chairman Ben is not up to. It believes he should be replaced.
Bernanke has been reappointed by President Obama, although needs US Congressional approval. That process kicked off on Friday.
The WSJ argues that while Bernanke has done a good job dealing with the crisis, his role at the Fed prior to the crisis suggests he won't have the guts to make unpopular rate hikes, which will be needed at some point in the future to reign in inflation.
Remember, unemployment in the US is over 10% and while one would expect that to start easing next year, it's possible Bernanke, according to the WSJ, will be forced to hike rates in the face of a still weak economy.
Back in New Zealand Dr Bollard does have a track record of hiking interest rates. He did so aggressively throughout 2006 and 2007 to kill off the housing market. However, it was during a boom.
When he has to hike rates late next year it will be more uncomfortable.
Unemployment (while hopefully trending back) could still be up around the 6% mark. That is far higher than during the boom times of 2007.
Also, far more Kiwis will be on floating rates than in 2007. This means they will feel the impact of any OCR hikes straight away.
Finally, when it comes to the high Kiwi dollar (relative to the US dollar) Dr Bollard perhaps hasn't had such a great year - that's of course we accept the argument that it is actually possible for him to do anything about it. He has effectively put up the white flag, saying there is little that can be done while the US dollar is weak.
Others, in particular economist Ganesh Nana, disagree saying he could intervene in currency markets to bring the dollar down and help lead an export recovery.
At the moment though our chief policy markers seem to back Bollard's view that there is nothing much New Zealand can do.
However, it's worth noting that there is a small but growing band of businesses CEOs, economists and union leaders out there agitating for action, such as pegging the currency to a basket of currencies or even adopting the Australian currency.
With interest rates set to climb in 2010 and some economist forecasting the Kiwi to return to hit 80 cents US, don't expect the issue of the dollar to go away in a hurry.
