Official figures show fewer Maori babies are dying.
The mortality rate for Maori infants dropped to 4.7% in 2012, down from 7% the year before.
A senior demographer at Statistics New Zealand, Christiaan Barnard, says the infant mortality rate of all New Zealand babies was down, driven by the decrease in the number of Maori infants dying.
He says officials are also seeing continuing declines in death rates at all ages, which is pushing life expectancy statistics higher.
