Chinese migration continued to be the largest contribution to New Zealand's migrant net gain, with 9,600 of the 72,100 net arrivals coming from China, despite a 6.5-percent drop on a year earlier.
New Zealand's statistics department Stats NZ said on Wednesday that China continued to be the biggest source of migrants on residence visas, despite a dip of 4.4 percent to 3,200 in the year to the end of October.
India was the second largest source of migrants at 6,900 after China, though Indian net migration decreased by 27 percent from a year earlier, with a 19-percent drop in annual student visas granted to Indian citizens, Stats NZ said.
Migration from Britain and South Africa had the biggest increases on a net basis, with British immigration up 26 percent to 6,600, and South African immigration up 31 percent to 5,000, it said.
New Zealand saw a net gain of 70,700 migrants for the year ended October 2017, which remained high by historical standards but was lower than the peak of 72,400 in the July 2017 year, Stats NZ said.
"Non-New Zealand citizen migrant arrivals continued to drive the high net migration levels," population statistics senior manager Peter Dolan said in a statement.
The fall in annual net migration from the peak in the July 2017 year was mainly caused by an increase in non-New Zealand citizen migrant departures, Dolan said.
A record 27,400 non-New Zealand citizen migrants departed in the October 2017 year, up 1.6 percent from the September 2017 year and up 22 percent from the October 2016 year, he said.
