Positive business confidence in the Western Bay of Plenty is poised to continue with a number of high profile projects beginning to take shape, according to the Tauranga Chamber of Commerce.

Tauranga Chamber of Commerce Chief Executive Officer Dave Burnett. Photo: file.

Latest quarterly figures show business confidence in the Northern region tells a story of maintained confidence for business and a positive outlook for the next three months.

Nationwide figures are slightly on last quarter but holding at a high level by historical standards.

Tauranga Chamber of Commerce chief executive Dave Burnett suggests this could reflect sentiment created from lower than expected dairy pay outs. But this may be offset by lower food and fuel prices New Zealand is currently experiencing.

'I think in terms of just business confidence, that increase that's what we are hearing out in the market place as well. And I think there is a lot of confidence in the Western Bay of Plenty at the moment which is fantastic.

'All the surveys point to the Bay of Plenty and Western Bay having a lot of confidence and these results are really just backing up what we already know. It's all good confident stuff really.”

Dave points to projects including the Trustpower building development in Durham Street, WNT Ventures, the Tauranga Eastern Link's completion later this year, and Kiwifruit 'coming back on steam” as all bolstering this positivity.

The survey also reflects strong employment intentions and hours to be worked.

This is backed by 18 per cent of employers expecting full-time employee numbers to be up, and 44 per cent expect to work longer hours to meet rising demand.

Both selling prices and profitability are expected to increase while national and export intentions are down slightly.

Dave says of concern for any economy must be the fact that 34 per cent of respondents to the survey suggested they were having difficulty finding the right people with the right skills – a constant for any growing economy.

Looking ahead to further quarterly figures Dave believes it is too early to speculate whether the discovery of Queensland fruit fly this month will hold any negative implications.

In total seven have now been, following the trapping on February 16 of a single male fruit fly. On February 20, a small isolated population of the fly was found in a home garden nearby in the same suburb.

A further two male fruit flies were detected in separate traps yesterday close the main affected property.

This is the fourth time the insect has been found in northern New Zealand since 2012. In all previous cases a solitary fly was the only detection and no populations were found in the area.

And he is confident Ministry for Primary Industries is doing all they can contain the horticultural scare – saying it's a serious risk and is going to be taken seriously.

'We couldn't let that fruit fly take hold and threaten our exports whether it was the kiwifruit or avocado you just wouldn't want to see that ever.

'We just have to make sure that our valuable export in the Bay of Plenty, particularly the Kiwifruit, is protected.”