New Zealand reaches new high in annual migration in March

New Zealand touched a new yearly migration high for the 20th successive month in March 2016 as more people continued to pour into the country. This island nation, in total, saw 67,600 migrants arriving over the last twelve months until the end of March 2016. Statistics New Zealand, which carried out the study, said that while the arrival of migrants rose by nine percent to 124,100, the departures numbered 56,400, a fall of two percent. As far as student migrants into the country were concerned, India topped the list with 9,815 arrivals, a decline of 4.1 percent compared to last year. China stood at the second spot in this category with 5,719 student arrivals and the Philippines trailed in the third position with 2,239 arrivals. New Zealand, located in the Southern Hemisphere, also witnessed the highest net migration ever from its neighbouring country of Australia since 1991, with the number showing an increase of 1,900. Migration, which touched a new high, is said to have boosted the growth of New Zealand’s economy, which grew at 2.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015 compared to the same period in 2014. This has led to a surge in demand for housing, services, retailing and vehicles. In fact, migration exceeded the estimates of Treasury and the Reserve Bank, and caused wage inflation to be low even as demand rose. Satish Ranchhod, an economist with Westpac Banking Corporation, was quoted as saying that population growth was a major contributor behind the spike in spending and economic activity, which, in turn, considerably increased the productive capacity of the economy. The number of work visas issued rose to 38,620, an increase of 12 percent compared to March 2015. Total number of student visas issued increased by 8.7 percent during the same period to 27,704. The largest number of people arriving on work visas was from the UK. France, Germany and Australia stood at the second, third and fourth positions, respectively, in the same category.