Manufacturing activity has risen to its strongest level in five months.
Catherine Beard Photo: Business New Zealand
Figures for August show the sector has expanded for 23 consecutive months, with strong growth in new orders and production.
The BNZ-Business New Zealand's Performance of Manufacturing Index rose 3 points to 56.5 points in August, from July.
A reading of above 50 points indicates expansion.
The proportion of positive comments from manufacturers was also at the highest level in many months, at 60.6 percent.
Business New Zealand's executive director for manufacturing Catherine Beard said it's a very positive result.
"It's on a five-month high in terms of expansion for manufacturing and really two years in expansion consecutively is pretty impressive. I don't think there would be many manufacturing indexes around the world that would have had that consistency over the last two years."
Catherine Beard said a lot of it is attributable to a very vibrant building and construction sector as activity there tends to impact a lot of manufacturers.
She said the fact positive comments dominated over negative ones was also encouraging.
"I think that just reflects the fact that manufacturers are in pretty good heart at the moment. The economy is ticking along and I think they are pretty positive about forward orders as well."
