Australia’s latest floods disaster will have a minimal economic impact nationally despite some damage to rail lines, mines and crops in certain areas, Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan said yesterday.
In recent weeks record floods have swamped large areas of New South Wales and Queensland, prompting fears of a repeat of last year’s floods, which put a significant dent in Australia’s GDP for the financial year to June last year.
“Despite the terrible impact on affected communities, we’re not expecting the flooding to have a significant impact on the national economy at this stage,” Swan wrote in a regular economic note.
“While the heavy rainfall has resulted in the temporary closure of several rail lines and caused disruption to some coal mines, it hasn’t caused any significant disruptions to major coal mining operations in the Bowen Basin or the Hunter Valley,” he wrote. “And while some crops are likely to be affected by the damage to farm land, Treasury advises the impact on the supply and prices of fresh produce is not expected to be great.”
Swan said Australia’s economy continued to do well, forecasting output in the key resources sector would increase by about 77 percent by 2020.
The floods forced thousands of people from their homes and killed one person.
On Saturday, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard toured the flood-hit town of St George in Queensland, where she said A$1.9 billion (US$2 billion) of funding had been released to the state government in recent days to help it combat the latest disaster.
However, Swan said Australia’s economy, buoyed by demand from China for iron ore and coal, is feeling the impact of a global slowdown as employers defer hiring new workers on European uncertainty.
While Australia can still expect “solid growth,” the global environment and gains in the nation’s currency will affect non-mining sectors such as manufacturing, he said.
“We shouldn’t pretend that there’s a simple solution,” Swan said. “The affected businesses will need to do more to adapt, to improve their efficiency, to spot new opportunities, to find new markets and to design new products.”
The Reserve Bank of Australia sees average growth of 3.5 percent this year, down from last year’s Nov. 4 estimate of 4 percent. Consumer prices will rise 3 percent in the year through to the fourth quarter, less than a previous prediction of 3.25 percent, the central bank said on Friday.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) yesterday said that Intel Corp would find itself in the same predicament as it did four years ago if its board does not come up with a core business strategy. Chang made the remarks in response to reporters’ questions about the ailing US chipmaker, once an archrival of TSMC, during a news conference in Taipei for the launch of the second volume of his autobiography. Intel unexpectedly announced the immediate retirement of former chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger last week, ending his nearly four-year tenure and ending his attempts to revive the
WORLD DOMINATION: TSMC’s lead over second-placed Samsung has grown as the latter faces increased Chinese competition and the end of clients’ product life cycles Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) retained the No. 1 title in the global pure-play wafer foundry business in the third quarter of this year, seeing its market share growing to 64.9 percent to leave South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co, the No. 2 supplier, further behind, Taipei-based TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report. TSMC posted US$23.53 billion in sales in the July-September period, up 13.0 percent from a quarter earlier, which boosted its market share to 64.9 percent, up from 62.3 percent in the second quarter, the report issued on Monday last week showed. TSMC benefited from the debut of flagship
A former ASML Holding NV employee is facing a lawsuit in the Netherlands over suspected theft of trade secrets, Dutch public broadcaster NOS said, in the latest breach of the maker of advanced chip-manufacturing equipment. The 43-year-old Russian engineer, who is suspected of stealing documents such as microchip manuals from ASML, is expected to appear at a court in Rotterdam today, NOS reported on Friday. He is accused of multiple violations of the sanctions legislation and has been given a 20-year entry ban by the Dutch government, the report said. The Dutch company makes machines needed to produce high-end chips that power
Taiwan would remain in the same international network for carrying out cross-border payments and would not be marginalized on the world stage, despite jostling among international powers, central bank Governor Yang Chin-long (楊金龍) said yesterday. Yang made the remarks during a speech at an annual event organized by Financial Information Service Co (財金資訊), which oversees Taiwan’s banking, payment and settlement systems. “The US dollar will remain the world’s major cross-border payment tool, given its high liquidity, legality and safe-haven status,” Yang said. Russia is pushing for a new cross-border payment system and highlighted the issue during a BRICS summit in October. The existing system
RSS