New Zealand, together with Russia and Burma, are the major destinations for Japanese used car exports.
Additionally, 44,659 new commercial vehicles were registered last year. This is an all-time high and compares with an annual average of 29,784 over the past 20 years.
The 2014 commercial vehicle figure is made up of vans and trucks - accounting for 89.9 per cent of the total - tractors 6.8 per cent and buses 3.3 per cent.
Thus, last year was a boom period for new motor vehicle and commercial vehicle registrations with a total of 265,216 compared with 218,359 in the previous year.
The current year has also started on a strong note with new car sales in January up 8.6 per cent compared with the same month last year, while commercial vehicle sales increased by 18.8 per cent over the same 12-month period.
The buoyant commercial vehicle market confirms that the business sector is extremely confident and optimistic about the future.
The other important figure is the year-end total registration number which was 3,760,932 at the end of 2014. Last year there were 265,216 new registrations and 131,571 vehicles taken off the road, leaving a net addition of 133,645 registrations.
The total number of registered vehicles has increased by 978,220 since December 2000. This comprises an additional 604,391 cars and 373,829 commercial vehicles.
The percentage increase in registrations since December 2000 has been as follows - cars 31.6 per cent, trucks 31.7 per cent and other commercial vehicles 51.4 per cent.
The total number of vehicles in Auckland is growing more rapidly than the rest of the country based on 2000 to 2013 statistics.
During this 13-year period Auckland's road vehicle fleet expanded by 35.5 per cent compared with 25.8 per cent for the rest of the country. As a result Auckland's roads have become more and more congested as the number of vehicles continues to grow rapidly.
New Zealand has an extensive road network but we are lacking as far as motorways are concerned. Councils are responsible for 82,000km of these local roads and the Government's NZ Transport Agency is responsible for 11,000km of state highways and motorways.
Forty years ago Auckland was well ahead of Sydney and Melbourne in terms of motorways but they have long since passed us by. Extensive motorway networks move traffic much more efficiently but New Zealand has the OECD's second lowest motorway length per capita, behind only Turkey.
We spend far more on new cars, imported cars and new commercial vehicles every year than we do on roads. Our politicians are incapable of making decisions, particularly in Auckland, about the appropriate mix of public transport and roads.
The situation is exacerbated in Auckland as the city spreads out because of our reluctance to approve medium- and high-density housing.
The good news about the booming new car and commercial vehicle market is that it shows that the domestic economy is growing strongly. The bad news is that longer and longer motorway queues will be a feature of weekend trips to the Coromandel and Northland in the years ahead.
Chatham Rock Phosphate
The downside of an ambitious business plan was clearly evident this week when the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) rejected Chatham Rock Phosphate's application to mine phosphorite nodules on the Chatham Rise.
The company's share price immediately plunged 92 per cent, from 20c to just 1.6c, leaving the company with a sharemarket value of just $3.4 million. Investors quickly concluded that the Chatham Rise project now has no chance of proceeding.
Chatham Rock Phosphate (CRP) first listed in November 2006 on the NZAX market, a cost-effective listing facility for small to medium sized and non-standard companies. It was originally called Widespread Energy and its objective was to invest in the oil and gas sector.
In August 2007 a consortium, with Widespread Energy holding 90 per cent, applied for a phosphate prospecting permit on the central Chatham Rise. The phosphate can be found at water depths of up to 400m.
The company argued that this phosphate resource could reduce the country's total dependence on imported rock, virtually all sourced from Morocco at the time.
Nevertheless Chris Castle, the driving force behind Widespread Energy, continued to focus on energy and he wrote in the 2008 annual report that the company had "made tremendous progress in building up an exciting portfolio of oil and gas exploration opportunities".
However, in April 2011 the company changed its name to Chatham Rock Phosphate and its main focus turned to the phosphate rock off the East Coast of the South Island.
Activity increased as the company raised more capital and made optimistic comments about the potential to generate annual pre-tax earnings between $62.5 million and $100 million. CRP filed its full Marine Consent application in May 2014. This was a six-month procedure to be considered thorough a full public process by an expert panel appointed by the EPA.
Shortly after this Edison Investment Research published a report saying that CRP's shares were trading at a significant discount to the company's unrisked valuation of $1.76 a share.
CRP made its closing submission on the application in November and the EPA announced that it would make its decision by January 30.
On Wednesday the EPA released a 300 page plus report which turned down CRP's application to mine the Chatham Rise.
It concluded that the proposed mining would have a negative impact on the seabed, stony corals and habitat. The report stated that these effects could not be avoided, remedied or mitigated by the company.
The report concluded that "the conditions proposed by the applicant (a management regime to mitigate the adverse effects), although they went some way towards addressing some of the risks associated with the proposal, did not allay the basic concern about the adverse effects of the proposal on a distinctive and important marine environment".
A reading of the report indicates that it is extremely unlikely that the EPA would ever approve mining consent on the Chatham Rise.
The rejection of Trans-Tasman Resources application to mine iron ore off the Taranaki coast shows that all mining projects are subject to vigorous review in New Zealand.
Why then has CRP spent nearly $30 million on the project?
In my opinion, there is a simple answer: Chris Castle's willingness to take risks and his ability to convince investors to fund his dreams.
Castle has been involved in a large number of listed companies, particularly in the 1980s. He has bounced back time and time again and it wouldn't be a major surprise if Chatham Rock Phosphate reversed direction and became a high-risk oil and gas explorer once again.
• Brian Gaynor is an executive director of Milford Asset Management.
