It's been a big 18 months for many Kiwi exporters and while the Covid-19 pandemic has put significant pressure on global supply chains and caused disruption to international trade globally, New Zealand's exports have remained a pocket of strength for the domestic economy.
In fact, New Zealand's annual exports continue to hover not far off record highs, pushing $60 billion.
Against expectations of a protracted downturn, the ongoing resilience of the primary sector has helped support the broader New Zealand economy through the pandemic. In fact, the ASB Commodities Index (a weighted index of New Zealand's major commodity exports) hit its highest monthly averages ever in March, April and May this year, and the ASB Economics team is forecasting a solid $7.90kgms milk price for the 2021/2022 season.
Based on this, it's not surprising to see regions with a high reliance on agriculture and horticulture generally performing better than others.
In the three months to March 2021, rural regions largely outperformed the major urban centres on ASB's Regional Economic Scoreboard, which tracks a range of economic indicators across the country. Hawke's Bay came in at number two on the scoreboard for the second consecutive quarter.