New Zealand's education industry has reversed a two-year decline in overseas enrolments with a record number of international students enrolling this year, led by increases in students from India and China, according to a government report out Friday.

The January-April enrolment period was the strongest on record with an increase of 8 percent, or an additional 5,100 international students, from the same period last year, said a report on international education from the government's Education New Zealand agency.

The report showed Indian students represented the largest proportion of the increase in international students, rising by 41 percent, or 2,996 additional students, while Chinese student enrolments were up by 12 percent or 2,212 additional students.

"Sustained hard work by the whole sector has halted a two-year decline in student enrolments and resulted in record number of students choosing New Zealand as their study destination," Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce said in a statement.

The increase coincided with an extension of student work rights and a new marketing campaign, he said.

"More students are coming from two of our priority markets, India and China, continuing a year-on-year trend of increasing numbers from these countries," Joyce said.

"These results bring an additional 40 million NZ dollars (33.6 million U.S. dollars) in fees revenue for New Zealand education providers, as part of an estimated 100 million NZ dollars (84.02 million U.S. dollars) of wider economic benefit to the economy."

International education was New Zealand's fifth largest export industry valued at 2.6 billion NZ dollars (2.18 billion U.S. dollars) a year and supporting 28,000 jobs, and it played a very important role in strengthening new economic, cultural and social links with the wider world, said Joyce. Endi

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