Editorial: Economy bouncing back at last

Despite the possibility of another drought, Hawke's Bay economy is on the up.

Whenever economic data about Hawke's Bay comes into my email inbox, I always have a slight feeling of dread.

I am so used to looking at the figures and seeing that our region is doing badly. It has become an all too familiar tale of woe.

So, when I saw an email from Statistics New Zealand with provincial growth figures, I expected more of the same.

To my surprise, the figures were not as bad as I had expected. Don't get me wrong, there is tremendous room for improvement and this data is a year old. But, the fact that Hawke's Bay's economy grew 6.4 per cent on the back of horticulture and dairy grazing in the year ending March 2014 is a good thing. All 15 regional economies grew, with a national increase of 6.7 per cent.

Our growth indicates that the region did bounce back after the 2012/13 drought. However, yesterday's good news was tempered by a Hawke's Bay Regional Council warning that another drought would be declared if rain didn't fall within the week. The upside is that one of our core industries, pipfruit, must take a lot of the credit for the growth. The industry is now targeting $1 billion in exports by 2022, hopefully creating an extra 1400 permanent jobs.

The surprise in the Stats NZ figures was the role dairy grazing played in our growth. We are not known as a dairy area, but it is good that local farmers have been able to take advantage of non-milking dairy cattle being sent to the region to recover capital stock numbers up after droughts.

All this is very positive, but we need more investment to stimulate the economy and create more permanent jobs.