Hamilton's CBD stats good news

Hamilton’s central city is leading the way when it comes to the economic numbers.

Infometrics NZ released its annual CBD economic profiles for 2015 last week and the Hamilton statistics show a marked improvement in the performance of the central city across key indicators.

GDP is on the rise, up a massive 8.1% on 2014, compared to Auckland at 3.4% and Wellington at 3.8% and New Zealand as a whole at 3.6%.

The biggest contributor to this figure came from the financial and industrial services sector up by 26% from 2014, followed by rental, hiring and real estate services and information media and telecommunications.

The largest contributor to the central city’s GDP comes from knowledge intensive service industries, research and media services with 46.1%, which is higher than the national economy of 31.3%.  Retail, food and accommodation services are next at 28.8%.  As expected, primary industries accounted for the smallest proportion of the central city’s GDP at 0.4%.

There are currently 20,846 employees in the central city which is up 2.9% from 2014, and shows a strong upward since the 2007 – 2013 period when Hamilton’s central city experienced job decline.  This growth compares well against the New Zealand figure of 2.4%.


Photo courtesy of Hamilton City Council

The CBD’s economy remains relatively diversified with an HHI (Index rating of 55.7 in 2015, better than New Zealand’s rating at 56.1.  This means the central city is not reliant on only a few industries and is therefore more likely to be resilient in times of economic downturn. 

Mayor Julie Hardaker says the report represents great news.

“People continue to knock the central city but these stats show that the year on year trends over the past couple of years are very positive, especially GDP growth which is significantly higher than other centres and New Zealand as a whole.”

“The Central City Transformation Plan and the River Plan are the drivers for change and projects are being implemented,” she says. “Lots of people are working together and contributing to the central city and we have seen some new and exciting developments and innovative initiatives to respond to challenges, like the People’s Project.  We need to keep this positive momentum going and keep working on busting the negative myths, which are the complete opposite to what this report is saying.”