April marked the third straight month when New Zealand’s yearly growth in level of immigration has dropped. So far, residents’ leaving the country has been the main reason behind. As per the figures by Statistics New Zealand, the number of arrivals who considered the country as permanent base surpassed the number of people who left the country. The number of permanent residents had outdone the latter by 19,954 during the twelve months until April 30. Still, the figure is lesser as compared to the figure of the year until March, when the number of permanent residents was 20,973. With this, the fourth month of 2010 experienced that lowest migration growth since the month of October last year.

With this, New Zealand minister of finance has come up with a novel idea, which dictates the step of cutting income taxes. The minister thinks such a step would ensure that more number of New Zealanders stay back in the country, instead of the residents going overseas in search of better paying jobs. Reportedly, factors like fewer immigrants, tight credits and low wages restricting domestic demand, which is in turn making the country’s central bank to lower down the rates of interest at its record level in order to ensure economic growth in the country. As per the reports, in Wellington, the New Zealand dollar collapsed to 66.80 at noon on May 21 from 66.93 (both in U.S. cents).

Immigration of overseas people to New Zealand is declining after reaching the highest in January, 2010. In April, a total of 770 migrants entered the country, and this marked the smallest gain since December 2008. Last month number of immigrants coming to the country declined by 12 percent from that of the same period last year. More than three thousand New Zealand residents left the country in April. Overseas people who left New Zealand accounted for about 2,130 in the same month. The figure was 1,791 last year. A total of 2,450 New Zealanders moved to Australia in April, while the number was 2,507 the previous year.