MSCNewsWire. Thursday 25 February 2016 - Someone finally said it. GDP growth is becomingly increasingly dependent on population growth. Net immigration has continued to “surprise to the upside”, and New Zealand can now expect the annual inflow to peak at almost 70,000 people this year.

So declares Westpac’s Economic Overview of February which carries the imprimatur of chief economist Dominic Stephens.

Westpac’s Overview says that this net increase in population can be ascribed to few New Zealanders leaving and more returning from overseas, and also too “increasing foreign students.”

Population growth is running at two percent a year.

According to the Overview, this means that forecasts of annual GDP growth of around two percent imply that per-capita growth “will be only a whisker above zero.”

From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk