Source : Perth Now news
Australia’s economic growth pace has slowed in the face of three interest rate rises and could be squeezed further with another possible Reserve Bank hike to tackle persistent inflation.
Gross domestic product in the year to June 30 eased to 2.1 per cent, down from March’s annual pace of 2.5 per cent.
The latest news from the Australian Bureau of Statistics comes as three of the big four banks – Commonwealth, NAB and ANZ – forecast another hike this year that would take the cash rate to a 15-year high of 4.6 per cent, with inflation in July remaining above the RBA’s 2-3 per cent target for the 12th straight month at 3.5 per cent.
Australia’s productivity crisis shows no sign of recovering with output for every hour worked shrinking by 0.2 per cent during the last financial year and was flat in the June quarter.
GDP per capita, or the value of goods and services divided by Australia’s population, was flat in the June quarter.
Australians were also saving more, with 6.5 per cent of income put away in the June quarter, up from 6.4 per cent in the March quarter, as a result of wage rises, bank interest and inflation-indexed social security benefits causing disposable incomes before taxes and bills to outpace household spending increases.
More to come…
