New Zealand's economic growth is expected to remain solid all the way out to 2017.

That's the latest prediction from the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research.

Senior economist Christina Leung attributes the growth strong net migration, a booming Auckland, and the Canterbury rebuild are boosting New Zealand’s economy.

"We expect growth to be just over 3 percent for the year to March and then average around 3 percent up to 2017. Beyond that we do expect a slight tapering of growth but overall it still remains fairly solid."

She adds that's primarily due to weak inflation pressures and an expanded labour force from strong net migration.

"Overall we expect additional 130,000 jobs over the next two years or so. We expect the unemployment rate to ease to 5.2 percent by early 2017."