New Zealand’s main city of Auckland became one of the first to see in the New Year with onlookers gathering at the harbour to enjoy the fireworks display.

As the clock struck midnight (11:00 GMT, 7 a.m. ET), fireworks were set off over the the city’s 328-metre Sky Tower near the harbour, to the sound of boat horns.

The South Pacific nation is one of the first to greet each New Year because of its proximity to the International Date Line.

In Asia, also among the first countries to see 2013, Increasingly democratic Burma, also known as Myanmar, is having a public countdown for the first time. Jakarta plans a huge street party befitting Indonesia’s powering economy.

In Sydney, eager revellers camped Sunday night on the shores of the harbour to get the best vantage points as 1.5 million gathered to watch the fireworks show centred on the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Sydney’s skyline erupted with fireworks as revellers cheered.

The shores were packed when an eight-minute preliminary show for young children exploded over the harbour three hours before the main event in Sydney and as the clock struck midnight in Samoa and other South Pacific islands to the east, ushering in 2013.

In Hong Kong, this year’s $1.6-million US fireworks display is billed by organizers as the biggest ever in the southern Chinese city. Police expected as many as 100,000 people to watch, local news reports said.

The buoyant economies of the Asia-Pacific are prepared to party with renewed optimism despite the so-called fiscal cliff threatening to reverberate globally from the United States and the tattered economies of Europe.

Other countries prepare to mark 2013

Celebrations were planned around the world, with hundreds of thousands expected to fill Times Square in New York City to watch the drop of a Waterford crystal-studded ball, and the annual outdoor festivities in Canada featuring celebrity musical acts at popular partying locations such as Toronto’s downtown Nathan Phillips Square outside city hall, and Queen Victoria Park in Niagara Falls, Ont.

One day after dancing in the snow to celebrate the first anniversary of leader Kim Jong Un’s ascension to supreme commander, North Koreans were preparing to mark the arrival of the new year, marked as “Juche 102″ on North Korean calendars. Juche means self-reliance, the North Korean ideology of independence promoted by national founder Kim Il Sung, who was born 102 years ago. His grandson now rules North Korea.

In New Delhi, the festive mood was marred by the death Saturday of a young rape victim.

Hotels, clubs and residents’ associations in the Indian capital decided to cancel planned festivities and asked people to light candles to express their solidarity with the victim whose plight sparked public rallies for women’s safety.

“Let there be no New Year celebrations across the country. It will be a major tribute to the departed soul,” said Praveen Khandelwal, secretary general of the Confederation of All India Traders, an umbrella group of operators of shops and businesses across the country.

In a field in Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon, workers were testing a giant digital countdown screen with the backdrop of the revered Shwedagon pagoda.

Arranged by local Forever Media group and Index Creative Village, a Thai event organizer, the celebration is the first public New Year countdown in Myanmar, a country ruled for almost five decades by military regimes that discouraged or banned big public gatherings.

“We are planning this public New Year event because we want residents of Yangon to enjoy the public countdown like in other countries,” said Win Thura Hlaing, managing director of Forever Blossom company, a subsidiary of Forever Media.

With live music performances by celebrities, light shows, food stalls, fireworks and other activities, the countdown is expected to draw 50,000 people, Win Thura Hlaing said.

Thousands line Sydney harbour

Jakarta’s street party centres on a seven-kilometre main thoroughfare closed to all traffic from nightfall until after midnight. Workers erected 16 large stages along the normally car-clogged, eight-lane highway through the heart of the city. Indonesia’s booming economy is a rare bright spot amid global gloom and is bringing prosperity — or the hope of it — to Indonesians.

Spirits in the capital have been further raised by the election of a new, populist governor who is pledging to tackle the city’s massive infrastructure problems.

In Sydney, Lord Mayor Clover Moore said about 1.5 million spectators were expected to line the harbour to watch the $6.9-million fireworks display, while another two million Australians among a population of 22 million would watch on television.

“This is really putting Australia on the map in terms of welcoming people to the new year,” Moore told reporters before the event.

Thousands lined the harbour shore in festive crowds under a blue summer sky by late afternoon, their number undiminished by Australian government warnings that the Washington deadlock on the U.S. debt crisis was partly to blame for a slowing Australian economy.

Australian pop singer Kylie Minogue was hosting the event.

Florida tourist Melissa Sjostedt was among the thousands gathered near a southern pylon of the bridge. She said seeing the fireworks would fulfill an ambition that began a decade ago when she read about them in National Geographic magazine.

“Ever since that, I’ve always wanted to see this for real, live, in person,” she said.

New Yorker Mathieu Herman said he had flown to Australia specifically for the New Year celebrations on the harbour.

“I saw it last year on TV and it looked fabulous. I said to myself it’s something I’ve just got to do,” Herman said.

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