Disasters shave Australia's GDP growth
Source: Bloomberg News |
May 30, 2011, Monday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
NATURAL disasters probably cut more than 1 percentage point from Australia's economic growth in the first quarter, Treasurer Wayne Swan said just days before a government report on gross domestic product.
The report from the Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday likely will show a "dramatic hit" from floods and a cyclone in Queensland state, and an earthquake and tsunami on March 11 in Japan, Swan said yesterday in a weekly economic note. Japan is Australia's second-biggest trading partner after China.
Swan's latest estimate was higher than one he made in April that put damage to gross domestic product in the first quarter at 0.75 percentage point. The median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 23 economists is for a 0.3 percent first-quarter contraction from the final three months of 2010.
The total economic cost of the disasters is likely to be about A$9 billion (US$9.6 billion), with more than half the estimated A$6 billion impact to coal production showing up in the March quarter, Swan said.
Australia's central bank has kept the nation's key interest rate at 4.75 percent since November to allow Queensland, which produces 80 percent of the coking coal exported from the country, to recover from the flooding.
"The size of that loss isn't surprising when you consider that 85 percent of Queensland's 57 coal mines suffered production losses in the early part of the year," Swan said.
The Reserve Bank of Australia's next meeting on interest rates is set for June 7. Earlier this month it said GDP "is likely to have declined in the March quarter."
The economy will grow 2.9 percent this year and accelerate in 2012 by 4.5 percent, the fastest pace since 2007, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has said.
The report from the Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday likely will show a "dramatic hit" from floods and a cyclone in Queensland state, and an earthquake and tsunami on March 11 in Japan, Swan said yesterday in a weekly economic note. Japan is Australia's second-biggest trading partner after China.
Swan's latest estimate was higher than one he made in April that put damage to gross domestic product in the first quarter at 0.75 percentage point. The median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 23 economists is for a 0.3 percent first-quarter contraction from the final three months of 2010.
The total economic cost of the disasters is likely to be about A$9 billion (US$9.6 billion), with more than half the estimated A$6 billion impact to coal production showing up in the March quarter, Swan said.
Australia's central bank has kept the nation's key interest rate at 4.75 percent since November to allow Queensland, which produces 80 percent of the coking coal exported from the country, to recover from the flooding.
"The size of that loss isn't surprising when you consider that 85 percent of Queensland's 57 coal mines suffered production losses in the early part of the year," Swan said.
The Reserve Bank of Australia's next meeting on interest rates is set for June 7. Earlier this month it said GDP "is likely to have declined in the March quarter."
The economy will grow 2.9 percent this year and accelerate in 2012 by 4.5 percent, the fastest pace since 2007, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has said.
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