Drought declared in New Zealand
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E-mail Xinhua, September 30, 2013
An official declaration of drought covering much of New Zealand after the worst dry spell in seven decades was formally lifted Monday.
Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy said rural communities had bounced back strongly after the drought, which began during the southern summer early this year.
"Earlier this year I extended the official drought declaration covering the entire North Island and West Coast of the South Island until the end of September. This was in recognition that the drought was the worst in 70 years and the need for support would continue through the winter," Guy said in a statement.
"Fortunately we have had an excellent winter with warm temperatures and decent rainfall. This has meant very good growing conditions for most farmers across the country."
The drought had shown the importance of irrigation and water storage in a country that currently stored less than 2 percent of rainfall, said Guy.
"We don't have a shortage of rainfall in this country, we just don't have enough capacity to store and use that water in dry times," he said.
The government was investing 80 million NZ dollars (66.18 million U.S. dollars) this year into the state-owned Crown Irrigation Investments Ltd. to act as a bridging investor for irrigation projects, and planned to invest up to 400 million NZ dollars in regional-scale schemes.
The New Zealand Treasury has estimated that the drought could shave up to 1 percentage point off the country's economic growth figure this year.
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