Construction, the missing piece of Hawaii’s economic recovery, is ramping up with developments rising around Kakaako.

Consumer spending, fueled by strong visitor arrivals, keeps chugging along.

It all bodes well for statewide businesses, which saw credit and debit card transactions rise 8.4 percent in the second quarter from the year-earlier period, according to First Hawaiian Bank’s latest business activity report.

The percentage increase for businesses open at least 12 months was the most for an April-June period in the four years that the bank has issued its quarterly study. It follows increases of 8.05 percent in 2012, 7.99 percent in 2011 and 4.07 percent in 2010.

"It’s really encouraging seeing not only growth in the consumer numbers, but also seeing good starts on the construction side as well," First Hawaiian President and CEO Bob Harrison said. "Consumers are still holding up their end, and it’s looking like construction is coming on strong as well."

The bank’s report, due to be released today, marked local businesses’ 14th straight quarter of rising sales.

Merchants had $726.8 million in card transactions during the second quarter compared with $670.5 million in the year-ago period. First Hawaiian, the largest bank in Hawaii, with $16.4 billion in assets, is able to track the economic pulse of the state through its card processing services. The bank is the largest local processor of debit and credit card transactions in the state. It has nearly 7,000 merchants on its network, with most of those in Hawaii.

Matson Inc. Chief Financial Officer Joel Wine said the state’s largest ocean shipper has been seeing an upward trend both in containers and in autos.

"Our view is similar to UHERO (University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization) and DBEDT (Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism)," he said. "We think things have bottomed, and although we don’t know what that slope of increase is going to look like, it feels like we’re headed in the right direction."

Wine can’t talk about the second quarter because the publicly traded Matson has yet to release its financial results, but he acknowledged the first quarter was positive for the state as Matson’s core Hawaii service handled 34,300 containers during the first three months, up 5.5 percent from 32,500 containers a year earlier.

Hawaii automobile shipments on Matson surged 36.1 percent to 23,000 vehicles in the first quarter from 16,900 in the year-ago period, a result largely from the timing of rental car fleet replacements.

"We’ve stabilized, and we’re still in the early innings of a recovery," Wine said of the Hawaii economy.

Shipping, which in the report includes air and ground as well as ocean, had a strong second quarter with a 13.7 percent increase to $17.6 million from $15.4 million during the same period in 2012. For the first half of the year, shipping was up 19.5 percent.

That places shipping second for percentage gain in both time periods behind only hotels, which have been seeing record room revenue numbers. Hotel card transactions had the largest percentage increase last quarter (20.6 percent) and highest volume ($130.5 million) of the 16 sectors that First Hawaiian tracks. Likewise, hotels also led the way through the first six months with a sales percentage increase of 21.6 percent and $305.4 million in transaction volume.

Surprisingly, two tourism-driven areas that are normally strong lagged during the second quarter with retail up just 0.6 percent to $87.2 million and travel activities down 1.1 percent to $33.8 million.

"Travel activities can be volatile quarter to quarter," Harrison said. "Retail was slower than normal, and I don’t have a good estimation for that. Hotels and restaurants in dollar amounts are our largest categories, and restaurants moved up only 5.36 percent, but it was a $6 million increase (from the year-earlier period) and that’s a pretty significant dollar increase."

Keith Nagata, First Hawaiian’s senior vice president and business services manager, said the hotels and shipping sectors have posted solid double-digit increases for four consecutive quarters to indicate that the state has a healthy, thriving economy.

"Tourism remains the economic driver with hotels showing positive growth in 13 out of the 14 quarters measured," Nagata said.

Harrison said he’s encouraged by the most recent quarter and the 9.68 percent year-over-year increase for the first six months.

"My hope is that this same trend continues and we continue to see solid single-digit or double-digit growth," Harrison said. "If we can continue to see that type of growth for the rest of 2013, that would be very, very good news."