{"id":343314,"date":"2026-03-23T06:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T06:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/343314\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T06:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T06:40:08","slug":"canterbury-leads-asbs-rankings-as-auckland-rebounds-and-wellington-finishes-last","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/343314\/","title":{"rendered":"Canterbury leads ASB\u2019s rankings as Auckland rebounds and Wellington finishes last"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Christchurch<\/p>\n

\nASB said Canterbury secured its third quarterly win of 2025.
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Nate McKinnon\n<\/p>\n

ASB’s latest Regional Economic Scoreboard shows Canterbury leading New Zealand’s regional growth, Auckland making strong gains, and Wellington slipping to the bottom of the rankings.<\/p>\n

Canterbury scored back-to-back economic wins in ASB’s latest regional economic survey.<\/p>\n

Canterbury finished the final quarter of 2025 on a strong note, once again topping ASB’s Regional Economic Scoreboard as the country’s best\u2011performing regional economy.<\/p>\n

Otago and Waikato tied for second place, while Auckland jumped from seventh to fourth.<\/p>\n

ASB said Canterbury secured its third quarterly win of 2025, outperforming the rest of the country in employment, retail spending, housing activity and population growth.<\/p>\n

Chief economist Nick Tuffley said the South Island continued to lead New Zealand’s multi\u2011speed recovery.<\/p>\n

“Canterbury has delivered back\u2011to\u2011back wins to close out the year, supported by strong dairy incomes, steady jobs growth, resilient consumer spending and the recovery of the tourism sector,” he said.<\/p>\n

Otago’s ranking was boosted by a strong tourism rebound, while Waikato benefited from a robust primary sector and an improving labour market.<\/p>\n

ASB expects the upcoming Fonterra capital return from the sale of Mainland<\/a> to further lift dairy farming regions through increased spending and investment.<\/p>\n

Auckland’s rise was driven by gains in retail spending, construction activity and consumer confidence, although its labour market remains subdued.<\/p>\n

Tuffley said Auckland’s move up the rankings showed the economic upswing was widening beyond the regions that led earlier in the cycle.<\/p>\n

At the other end of the table, Wellington finished last, weighed down by ongoing weakness in the housing market, construction activity and discretionary spending, despite relatively strong employment growth.<\/p>\n

Tuffley said Wellington’s economy should improve, helped by low interest rates, but emerging challenges could slow the pace of recovery.<\/p>\n

Nationally, ASB said the economy showed signs of growth in the final quarter of 2025 as lower interest rates lifted retail spending and employment indicators stabilised.<\/p>\n

However, Tuffley warned the conflict in the Middle East would pose fresh headwinds through higher energy costs and rising inflation.<\/p>\n

“The situation and extent of any impact to growth and inflation is highly uncertain and will depend on how long the conflict goes on for,” he said.<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ASB said Canterbury secured its third quarterly win of 2025. Photo: RNZ \/ Nate McKinnon ASB’s latest Regional…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343315,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":["post-343314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}