The Hawaii economy continues to rebound with housing prices at record levels on Oahu and statewide unemployment near a six-year low.

That’s a good position to be in for HPM Building Supply, an employee-owned Hawaii island company that supplies the building industry with lumber, building materials, paint, plumbing, tools, roofing supplies and electrical items among other things.

"Our business is directly impacted by the overall economy, especially as it relates to new construction and real estate sales," said Mike Fujimoto, president and chief executive officer of the 93-year-old company headquartered in Keaau.

It’s no surprise, then, that HPM’s credit and debit card sales, which account for nearly 30 percent of the company’s overall volume, were up between 5 percent and 8 percent in the second quarter compared with the same time a year ago.

Overall, statewide card transactions for home improvement rose 11.2 percent in the second quarter from the year-earlier period and was the second-best-performing sector of 16 categories tracked by First Hawaiian Bank in its quarterly business activity report, due to be distributed Sunday. The report showed that overall card sales rose 5 percent during the April-to-June period from the same time in 2013.

It was the home improvement sector’s largest second-quarter percentage growth since the start of the report in 2010.

"Tourism is still the driver," said Bob Harrison, chairman, president and chief executive officer of First Hawaiian. "We’ve seen over a period of time strong growth in tourism, and now you’re starting to see some individual consumer activities as people feel better about how they’re doing. You’re starting to see things like home furnishing and home improvement pick up."

First Hawaiian, the largest bank in Hawaii with $17.3 billion in assets, is also 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.

Fujimoto said HPM’s revenue was up in the second quarter from the year-ago period for several reasons.

"No. 1 is that unemployment statewide is decreasing, which means that more people are working and have disposable income to spend on items like home improvement," he said. "And statewide, people are finally buying homes. Sales of existing homes have increased, and inventories of existing homes have decreased. Any time you have a transaction that involves the sale of an existing home, invariably you have home improvement purchases immediately afterward because people want to fix up, paint, whatever."

HPM has about 260 employees and six outlets — four on Hawaii island, one on Kauai and one on Oahu in Campbell Industrial Park.

"We do enjoy our retail business, but the bulk of our business is the professional or the contractor business," he said.

Fujimoto said the construction surge in Kakaako is increasing activity for everyone in the industry either directly or indirectly but has not had a major effect on HPM’s business.

"Our business spans the Big Island and Kauai as well as Oahu," he said. "So the businesses on Kauai and the Big Island are not seeing any impact in what’s going on with rail or what’s going on in Kakaako."

He said Hawaii island, where HPM has two-thirds of its outlets, has lagged behind the Oahu recovery and is just now starting to come around.

"Oahu actually came out sooner. It was probably 2012 when Oahu began to see an upswing, so Oahu had a much better time of it while the neighbor islands in general experienced a much more prolonged downturn," Fujimoto said.

"We’re seeing an overall increase in purchases in pretty much all categories — lumber, building materials, hardware, paint, plumbing, tools, electrical supplies and roofing."

Other than home improvement, utilities and communications was the only other category to post a double-digit percentage increase in the second quarter from the year-ago period. It led the way with an 11.4 percent gain in card sales. Utilities and communications includes card payments made for such things as cable, telephone, water and refuse.

Home furnishing was third with an increase of 8.7 percent.

While the overall numbers reflected the 18th straight quarter of growth in card transactions, it was the slowest second quarter since 2010 when card transactions rose 4.1 percent. Since then card transactions in each second quarter have risen about 8 percent until this last period.

Although 13 of the 16 sectors tracked posted increases, two of the bellwethers of the state’s tourism-led economy — hotels (up 3.6 percent) and retail (down 0.7 percent) — posted sluggish results. Restaurant card transactions, though, rose 6.9 percent.

As usual, hotels processed the greatest volume of card transactions at $131.9 million with restaurants close behind at $122.9 million.

Harrison said he’s optimistic about the second half of the year.

"We’ve had a very good year so far, and we’re continuing to expect modest growth in the 3 to 4 percent range," he said. "If we’re fortunate and stay at the 5 percent to 6 percent level (in card transactions), I think that will be exceptional. But right now we expect to see modest growth through the end of the year."