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Gross domestic product (GDP) provides a snapshot of the performance of the economy. GDP is New Zealand’s official measure of economic growth.

Key facts

The following movements are in seasonally adjusted chain volume terms (adjusted for price inflation).

In the September 2024 quarter, compared with the June 2024 quarter:

• GDP fell 1.0 percent
• expenditure on GDP fell 0.8 percent
• GDP per capita fell 1.2 percent
• real gross national disposable income fell 0.8 percent.

The following movements are in seasonally adjusted nominal terms (not adjusted for price inflation).

In the September 2024 quarter, compared with the June 2024 quarter:

• expenditure on GDP rose 0.4 percent
• income GDP rose 0.1 percent.

New Zealand economy down in September 2024 quarter

The following movements are in seasonally adjusted chain volume terms.

Economic activity fell 1.0 percent in the September 2024 quarter as measured by gross domestic product. This follows a 1.1 percent fall in the June 2024 quarter. GDP rose 0.1 percent over the year ended September 2024 compared with the year ended September 2023.

Expenditure on GDP fell 0.8 percent in the September 2024 quarter, following a 0.8 percent fall in the June 2024 quarter. Expenditure on GDP rose 0.1 percent over the year ended September 2024 compared with the year ended September 2023.

Growth and contribution to growth by industry group, September 2024 quarter

The following three graphs show the growth, contribution to growth, and economic share of the primary, goods-producing, and services industries to GDP for the September 2024 quarter. Click the Table tabs to see all the values.

Downwards drivers – change in production

The following movements are in seasonally adjusted chain volume terms.

Manufacturing was down 2.6 percent, driven by:

• metal product manufacturing
• wood and paper products manufacturing
• food, beverage and tobacco product manufacturing
• transport equipment, machinery and equipment manufacturing.

Business services was down 1.5 percent, driven by:

• scientific, architectural, and engineering services
• employment and other administrative services.

Construction was down 2.8 percent, driven by:

• construction services
• residential building construction.

Upwards drivers – change in production

The following movements are in seasonally adjusted chain volume terms.

Rental, hiring, and real estate services was up 1.0 percent.

Agriculture, forestry, and fishing was up 1.4 percent, driven by:

• dairy cattle farming
• horticulture and fruit growing.

Breakdown of GDP by expenditure

Table 2, Quarterly and annual average percentage change in GDP, by expenditure in chain volume terms,
June 2024 and September 2024 quarters

	June 2024 quarter (updated)	September 2024 quarter	Annual average (growth over YE September 2024)
Household final consumption expenditure	-0.2	-0.3	0.0
Non-profit organisations serving households	1.5	1.2	8.6
Private consumption expenditure	-0.1	-0.3	0.2
Central government expenditure	-0.3	-2.7	0.1
Local government expenditure	-1.3	3.8	5.0
General government expenditure	-0.4	-1.9	0.7
Gross fixed capital formation	-0.7	-2.9	-4.0
Gross capital formation	0.0	-2.9	-7.7
Gross national expenditure	0.2	-1.0	-1.6
Exports of goods and services	1.7	-2.1	5.3
Less imports of goods and services	-1.2	-0.4	-0.8
Expenditure on gross domestic product	-0.8	-0.8	0.1
Note: For September 2024 quarter, the measures of average annual growth compare activity over the most recent year (sum of activity in December 2023 to September 2024 quarters) with activity over the previous year (sum of activity in December 2022 to September 2023 quarters). YE – year ended

Downwards drivers – change in expenditure

The following movements are in seasonally adjusted chain volume terms.

Gross fixed capital formation was down 2.9 percent, driven by:

• plant, machinery, and equipment
• transport equipment.

Exports was down 2.1 percent, driven by:

• meat products
• other food, beverages, and tobacco.

Upwards drivers – change in expenditure

The following movements are in seasonally adjusted chain volume terms.

Imports of goods and services was down 0.4 percent (a fall in imports has an upwards contribution to expenditure on GDP), driven by:

• capital goods
• passenger motor cars.

New Zealand’s real purchasing power falls in the September 2024 quarter

The following movements are in seasonally adjusted chain volume terms.

In the September 2024 quarter, compared with the June 2024 quarter:

• real gross national disposable income fell 0.8 percent
• real gross national disposable income per capita fell 1.0 percent.

In the year ended September 2024, compared with the year ended September 2023:

• annual real gross national disposable income fell 0.5 percent
• annual real gross national disposable income per capita fell 2.7 percent.

While GDP measures economic activity, real gross national disposable income (RGNDI) measures the volumes of goods and services that New Zealand residents have command over, that is, the real purchasing power of the country’s disposable income. RGNDI is also affected by changes in the terms of trade, the country’s net investment income, and net transfer flows with the rest of the world.

New Zealand’s ability to buy goods and services from its income, RGNDI, was down, at 0.8 percent in the September 2024 quarter. Economic activity and net transfer flows decreased, while net investment income on our international investments and the terms of trade increased.

Over the September 2024 quarter, export prices rose 0.7 percent, while import prices fell 1.7 percent, increasing the terms of trade in the quarter. An increase in the terms of trade results in less exports being needed to pay for a given volume of imports. This means that residents can purchase more goods and services by volume from the income generated from a given level of domestic production.

The 0.8 percent decrease in RGNDI, coupled with a population increase of 0.2 percent over the quarter, resulted in RGNDI per capita decreasing 1.0 percent in the quarter.

Annually, RGNDI fell 0.5 percent over the year to September 2024 while RGNDI per capita fell 2.7 percent over the year.

Quarterly nominal expenditure GDP, September 2024 quarter

Seasonally adjusted nominal expenditure GDP rose 0.4 percent in the September 2024 quarter. The size of the economy was $420 billion for the year ended September 2024.

Breakdown of GDP by income

Table 3, Quarterly and annual average percentage change in GDP, by income in nominal terms,
June 2024 and September 2024 quarters

	June 2024 quarter (updated)	September 2024 quarter	Annual average (growth over YE September 2024)
Compensation of employees	0.6	0.2	6.2
Gross operating surplus and gross mixed income	-2.1	0.4	-1.3
Taxes on production and imports	2.5	-0.4	6.5
Less subsidies	-14.2	16.4	-4.0
Income gross domestic product	-0.2	0.1	3.0
Note: For September 2024 quarter, the measures of average annual growth compare activity over the most recent year (sum of activity in December 2023 to September 2024 quarters) with activity over the previous year (sum of activity in December 2022 to September 2023 quarters). YE – year ended

Nominal income GDP rises

The following movements are in seasonally adjusted nominal price terms.

Nominal GDP evaluates gross domestic product at current prices, without adjusting to account for price changes from inflation.

Nominal income GDP rose 0.1 percent in the September 2024 quarter, following a 0.2 percent fall in the June 2024 quarter. The drivers were:

• gross operating surplus and gross mixed income, up 0.4 percent
• compensation of employees, up 0.2 percent
• taxes on production and imports, down 0.4 percent
• subsidies, up 16.4 percent (a rise in subsidies has a downwards contribution to income GDP).

New Zealand and trade partners, September 2024 quarter

Table 4, Percentage changes in GDP, international comparisons in chain volume terms,
September 2024 quarter and with same quarter previous year (September 2023 quarter)

Country	Quarterly % change in GDP, September 2024 quarter	% change from same quarter previous year
New Zealand	-1.0	-1.5
Australia	0.3	0.8
Canada	0.3	1.5
China	0.9	4.6
Euro area (20 countries)	0.4	0.9
European Union (27 countries)	0.3	0.9
Japan	0.3	0.5
OECD – Total	0.4	1.7
United Kingdom	0.1	1.0
United States	0.7	2.7
Data as at 16 December 2024. See OECD.Stat for GDP data covering other countries. Take care when comparing New Zealand’s GDP figures with those of other countries, as the methodology used varies internationally. Stats NZ publishes both ‘average annual growth’ and ‘year-on-year’ (change from same quarter previous year) GDP growth rates. ‘Average annual growth’ is Stats NZ’s preferred measure, but it is not available from the OECD website for all countries each quarter. For more information on average annual growth and year on year growth, see DataInfo+.

Quarterly and annual growth revised due to annual benchmarking, method changes, and updated data

In the September quarter of each year, we reconcile quarterly constant price series with new annual national accounts data which have undergone supply-use balancing. This process often coincides with the implementation of methodology changes and updated data sources.

This reconciliation is standard international best practice, essential for maintaining the quality of the quarterly series over time. It allows us to include more comprehensive detail that is not captured by our quarterly indicators.

The new annual data comes from two releases, published on 15 November 2024:

• ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ accounts (industry production and investment): Year ended March 2023
• ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ accounts (income and expenditure): Year ended March 2024.

Annual industry data in current prices is deflated to provide constant price annual industry benchmarks for the reconciliation process. Annual benchmark data for 2023 was used to update the weights used for aggregating the lower-level components in the production measure of GDP, through a process called chain-linking. This ensures that the changing structure of the New Zealand economy is reflected in the volume series.

Annual benchmark updates can significantly affect quarterly estimates of economic growth. Structural changes and updated data often result in revised annual and quarterly growth rates, especially for the most recent period. These revisions improve our quarterly growth estimates by better reflecting recent changes in the structure of the economy.

The graph below shows how each industry contributed to quarterly GDP.

The graph below shows how each component contributed to quarterly expenditure on GDP.

For more information on updates to GDP, see Improvements to gross domestic product September 2024 quarter.

Seasonal adjustment

We have implemented multiple enhancements to the seasonal adjustment methodology of quarterly GDP and its component series following a review of our approaches.

Over the last few years, we applied additive outlier treatment to our aggregate GDP estimates and to industries and components significantly affected by border closures and domestic COVID-19 restrictions. This was necessary because the sharp changes in activity through this period have posed challenges for our usual seasonal adjustment processes. Additive outliers subdue the impact of unusual data points on the seasonal adjustment process.

Now that the COVID-19 impacts are greatly diminished in our recent time series, we have updated our approach to the seasonal adjustment of COVID-affected periods and introduced the new Stats NZ standard for the application of additive outliers. This methodology aligns with other Stats NZ releases, such as the Retail Trade Survey and Business Financial Data, which have also incorporated this standard.

We also updated the choice between a direct or indirect approach to seasonal adjustment for some of our aggregate series to improve the quality of these seasonal adjusted series.

The changes to the seasonal adjustment methodology have no impact on our actual data, our deflators, or our measurement of economic activity across a whole year through average annual growth rates. They update our measurement of how seasonally adjusted economic activity is distributed within a year, meaning that growth rates have increased in some quarters and decreased in other quarters, compared to previously published figures.

For the headline GDP production measure, the growth rate in the June 2024 quarter has been revised downwards significantly, while activity in the previous three quarters has been revised upwards.

For more information on the seasonal adjustment methodology changes, see:

• Improvements to gross domestic product September 2024 quarter
• Gross domestic product: September 2024 quarter – changes and data updates – DataInfo+ has more information on changes and data updates.

More data

Use Infoshare to access the national accounts time series.

Subject category: Economic indicators
Group: ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ accounts – SNA 2008

Structure of the economy

We no longer produce the gross domestic product data visualisation product. The CSV file ‘Gross domestic product: September 2024 quarter – visualisation CSV’ under Download data contains the underlying data previously used to produce this.

Tourism satellite account: Year ended March 2023 provides a picture of the role tourism plays in New Zealand, with information on the changing levels and impact of tourism activity.

Definitions and metadata

³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ accounts quarterlies – DataInfo+ provides the general methodology used to produce these statistics.

³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ accounts quarterlies – concepts – DataInfo+ provides the definitions of terms used in this release.

Gross domestic product: September 2024 quarter – changes and data updates – DataInfo+ has details of data updates for this release.

Overview of sources and methods for quarterly gross domestic product: Updates and COVID-19 adjustments provides an overview of changes to our usual quarterly GDP methods, including alternative data sources and methods we are using to measure the effects of COVID-19 in New Zealand.

About the quarterly income measure of GDP provides more information on the GDPI measure.

³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ accounts (income, saving, assets, and liabilities): Sources and methods (fourth edition) provides the data sources and compilation methods used in estimating GDPI as well as income by institutional sector and saving, assets, and liabilities measures.

Technical enquiries

Katrina Dewbery
04 931 4841
[email protected]

ISSN 1178-0290

Next release

Gross domestic product: December 2024 quarter will be released on 20 March 2025.