A net 14% of households in Southland expect their region’s economy to improve over the coming year, according to the Westpac-McDermott Miller Regional Economic Confidence survey for the March 2021 quarter.

That is sharply up on the net 2% of households who reported that they were feeling optimistic in the December quarter.

“Greater optimism in Southland reflects the impact of a hot housing market, which continues to see strong sales volumes and escalating property prices,” said Westpac Acting Chief Economist Michael Gordon. 

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“It’s also likely to reflect a strong performance from the region’s agricultural sector, with soaring dairy prices a key driver.”

“Sentiment is likely to have been further boosted by news of an investigation into the potential for a large scale renewable hydrogen production plant as well as plans to build a huge cloud computer data centre in the region,” said Mr Gordon.

The survey was conducted over the period 1-11 March 2021.

Regional economic confidence is measured by subtracting the percentage of the region’s residents who believe their region will experience bad economic times over the coming year from the percentage who believe the region will experience good economic times.

Reporting by Westpac NZ Ltd