Wellington, Aug 16 (IANS): New Zealand's resident population provisionally grew by 2.1 per cent, or 105,900 people, over the preceding 12 months, to reach 5.22 million on June 30, the statistics department said on Wednesday.

"Growth of 2.1 per cent is a sizeable rebound," Stats NZ's estimates and projections manager Michael MacAskill said, adding that New Zealand's net migration during the June 2023 year was the main driver of population growth over this period.

Net migration rebounded to a gain of 86,800 in the June 2023 year, reversing a net migration loss of 17,600 in the June 2022 year, Xinhua news agency quoted MacAskill as saying.

Reduced migration due to Covid-19 border restrictions resulted in low population growth in the preceding two years, which saw 0.4 per cent growth to June 2021 and 0.1 per cent to June 2022, statistics show.

New Zealand's population change is a combination of natural increase, births minus deaths and net migration, migrant arrivals minus migrant departures.

"Natural increase had a smaller impact on population growth than in previous years, due to fewer live births and slightly more deaths," MacAskill said, adding that the natural increase of 19,100 was the smallest New Zealand has experienced since 1943.

New Zealand has an ageing population resulting in an increasing number of deaths each year, he said.

He added that the higher number of deaths in the June 2023 year, which was 3.8 per cent more than in 2022, also reflects more deaths in the September and December quarters in 2022, which includes the impacts of the pandemic.