Asia helps drive surge in New Zealand screen industry

Work from Asia has helped drive a boom in New Zealand's film and television industry last year, the government statistics agency said Wednesday.

Overall, New Zealand's screen industry had total revenue of 3. 22 billion NZ dollars (2.23 billion U.S. dollars) in 2015, up by 66 million NZ dollars (45.77 million U.S. dollars) from 2014, according to Statistics New Zealand.

International revenue rose 4 percent for production and post-production sector businesses, to 515 million NZ dollars (356. 94 million U.S. dollars), said a commentary from the agency.

"In particular, revenue from Asia rose dramatically, from 14 million NZ dollars (9.7 million U.S. dollars in 2014 to 74 million NZ dollars (51.29 million U.S. dollars) in 2015. This was mainly driven by an increase in contracting income, rather than income from producing," it said.

The number of international co-productions completed in 2015 rose to 106, up 34 percent from 2014.

In 2015, screen industry production and post-production was up 9 percent on 2014, senior manager Nicola Growden said in a statement.