There's been a surprisingly big jump in building activity, with the biggest quarterly gain in the past ten years, driven by construction work in Canterbury and the upper North Island.

New Zealand chalked up its third monthly trade deficit in October, with the annual deficit widening to $1.37 billion.

Exporters' lobby group calls for increasing population through immigration and developing bigger companies.

Aging baby boomers are pushing numbers of those aged 65 and over to unprecedented levels, adding to the financial pressure on the rest of the population.

Seasonal falls in vegetable prices took the food price index down 0.6pc last month.

Money spent by Chinese visitors to New Zealand has soared nearly 40 per cent in the past year, taking it past the UK as our second biggest source of tourism dollars.

New Zealand's population will reach 4,444,444 tomorrow, according to Government population numbers.

A support organisation for migrant parents in Auckland is experiencing a baby boom because of a surge in the number of dragon babies born to Chinese parents.

New Zealand will have more than five million people by 2031 – with almost 2 million living in Auckland, according to Statistics New Zealand projections.

Computer systems design jobs have surged by nearly 80 per cent since 2000.