Client: Wanganui District Council

Date: January 2006

Author(s): Dr Nicola Chandler; Dr Ganesh Nana

Wanganui District was the 3rd best performing LA on the BERL Regional Database relative rankings in 2005. This is undoubtedly a strong performance and is even more impressive when compared to its ranking in 2004 of just 56th.

The key sectors driving the Wanganui District economy (in terms of GDP) in 2005 were manufacturing and building; business services; and social services, in that order. There is also a significant primary sector, which has fared relatively well in compared to New New Zealand as a whole, which has seen a decline at the national level, reflecting difficult production and export conditions.

This strength has come from improvements in all of the indicators upon which the overall ranking is based, which are population; employment; GDP and productivity. An overall ranking is assigned, which is a summation of these four indicator rankings.

The rankings are relative as opposed to absolute, i.e. they rank the District’s performance according to its percentage change in each indicator relative to their own five-year average and relative to percentage changes in the New Zealand average of these indicators.

BERL#4441