Huge leap in Gisborne district's performance

Growth in full time employment, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the number of businesses has seen a significant increase in the ranking of the performance of the Gisborne district’s economy.

Business and Economic Research Limited (BERL) measures the performance of each district’s economy each year using a range of indicators including population, employment, gross domestic product (GDP) and number of businesses.

Measured against the 2010 indicators BERL’s latest report shows that Gisborne has taken a huge leap forward. The Gisborne district is now placed twelfth out of 72 districts. This is up from 52nd and 59th in 2009 and 2008 respectively. The report shows that the Gisborne economy is growing faster than most other districts in the country and that the gap between our GDP (per capita) and others is getting smaller. The districts are defined by the area covered by each of New Zealand’s territorial authorities (councils).

“It is really pleasing to see the Gisborne district comparing so well to other areas,” says Gisborne District Council chief executive Lindsay McKenzie. “Independent reports like these are one of the few ways we can track how Gisborne is performing.  Although there is always room to challenge the assumptions and the data, the report shows that there has been a notable improvement in how the district is doing economically relative to other districts.  There is a risk in taking this report at face value and being complacent but there is also a risk in talking down the district’s economic performance and being pessimistic – it could become self fulfilling.” 

The report shows that GDP grew by 5.5% in the last year. This figure measures the total value of economic activity.  It is the sum of all wages, salaries, profit and operating surplus from all economic activity. Gisborne’s growth in GDP ranked 6th out of all districts in the country.

Full time employment in Gisborne grew by 2.8% last year.  According to BERL this equates to about 500 jobs.  Only six districts had a higher percentage of employment growth than Gisborne and only seven districts showed an increase in the number of businesses. Gisborne was one of them.

Gisborne’s population has remained steady over the last five years. “It is pleasing to see an increase of nearly 1% last year; likely linked to the growth in jobs and GDP.”

BERL is a leading economics consultancy based in Wellington that publishes an annual report ranking New Zealand’s 72 Territorial Local Authority’s (TLA) by nine key performance indicators. The latest report considers each authority for the year ending March 2010 against short-term and medium-term performance in population growth, employment growth, Gross Domestic Product growth and the number of new businesses in each district. 

A full copy of the 2010 BERL Regional Performance Report can be found at www.berl.co.nz/573a1.page