Higher than expected investment returns in the second half of last year helped boost New Zealand government's coffers by around one billion NZ dollars (700 million U.S. dollars), said Statistics New Zealand Wednesday.

It said in the six months to December last year, the government recorded an operating surplus of 4.47 billion NZ dollars (3.13 million U.S. dollars).

However, most of the extra money is not able to be spent by the government.

The Treasury said the increase was mainly due to increases in investment returns from the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, and the Government Superfund.

Those entities hold on to any gains that are made.

Once those investments are taken into account along with higher than expected foreign exchange earnings, the government's operating balance is just over 3.5 billion NZ dollars (2.5 billion U.S. dollars).

Meanwhile, the government's net worth has been re-valued upwards by 11 billion NZ dollars (7.7 billion U.S. dollars) to 86 billion NZ dollars (60 billion U.S. dollars), following a revaluation of the rail network, said Statistics New Zealand.

Source: Xinhua