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.
Merida Industry Co (美利達) has seen signs of recovery in the US and European markets this year, as customers are gradually depleting their inventories, the bicycle maker told shareholders yesterday. Given robust growth in new orders at its Taiwanese factory, coupled with its subsidiaries’ improving performance, Merida said it remains confident about the bicycle market’s prospects and expects steady growth in its core business this year. CAUTION ON CHINA However, the company must handle the Chinese market with great caution, as sales of road bikes there have declined significantly, affecting its revenue and profitability, Merida said in a statement, adding that it would
MARKET LEADERSHIP: Investors are flocking to Nvidia, drawn by the company’s long-term fundamntals, dominant position in the AI sector, and pricing and margin power Two years after Nvidia Corp made history by becoming the first chipmaker to achieve a US$1 trillion market capitalization, an even more remarkable milestone is within its grasp: becoming the first company to reach US$4 trillion. After the emergence of China’s DeepSeek (深度求索) sent the stock plunging earlier this year and stoked concerns that outlays on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure were set to slow, Nvidia shares have rallied back to a record. The company’s biggest customers remain full steam ahead on spending, much of which is flowing to its computing systems. Microsoft Corp, Meta Platforms Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc are
RISING: Strong exports, and life insurance companies’ efforts to manage currency risks indicates the NT dollar would eventually pass the 29 level, an expert said The New Taiwan dollar yesterday rallied to its strongest in three years amid inflows to the nation’s stock market and broad-based weakness in the US dollar. Exporter sales of the US currency and a repatriation of funds from local asset managers also played a role, said two traders, who asked not to be identified as they were not authorized to speak publicly. State-owned banks were seen buying the greenback yesterday, but only at a moderate scale, the traders said. The local currency gained 0.77 percent, outperforming almost all of its Asian peers, to close at NT$29.165 per US dollar in Taipei trading yesterday. The
The US overtaking China as Taiwan’s top export destination could boost industrial development and wage growth, given the US is a high-income economy, an economist said yesterday. However, Taiwan still needs to diversify its export markets due to the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s administration, said Chiou Jiunn-rong (邱俊榮), an economics professor at National Central University. Taiwan’s exports soared to a record US$51.74 billion last month, driven by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products and continued orders, with information and communication technology (ICT) and audio/video products leading all sectors. The US reclaimed its position as Taiwan’s top export market, accounting for
RSS