Debit and credit card spending figures from Paymark show a 6.1 percent increase in spending around the country in the first half of the month, compared to the same period last year.
LISTEN ABOVE: Paymark spokesman Paul Brislen talks to Larry Williams about this years' Christmas spendingÂ
However, Paymark spokesman Paul Brislen said spending was down in Marlborough due to the quake, and Gisborne due to the outage.
"Certainly in Gisborne's case we would hope that was a short lived thing and that in fact we'll see results return to normal quite quickly now that the powers restored" he said.Â
Power was cut to Gisborne a week ago when a plane crashed into high voltage lines.
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