Australia

Overview

• Officially known as is the Commonwealth of Australia
• The Liberal-National coalition is in power by a small majority over other parties
• The current government is unpopular yet opposing parties are divided
• A general election will be held at the end of 2001 and the Liberal-National Coalition will continue to uphold tax reform and market deregulation as their priority
• The economy has grown at a rate of 4.5% in the first half of year 2000 and experiences a boost in September due to the Olympic Games event in Sydney and increase in tourism
• This recent strength of the economy may help the coalition to stay in power
• Real GDP growth is estimated to reach 4.7% in 2001 and then slows down in the next few years.
• The growth of imported goods in the second quarter was 6% versus 8.6% rise in exported goods. Thus the trade deficit declined to A$2.52bn.
• The current account Deficit in the second quarter was A$7.9bn (US$4.4bn), which was a slight decline from 5% to 4.85% of GDP.
• Inflation reached 3.2% last year and the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) raised the target cash interest rate by .25 in August 2000 to curb inflation

Opportunities

• Manufacturing
• Construction
• Retail & Wholesale
• Tourism

Marketing Tips

• Revenue increase due to the Olympic Games in September 2000 along with personal income tax cuts fostered consumption and increased demand for goods and services
• A new goods and services tax (GST) in July 2000 and a significant rise in disposable income may further stimulate spending on new houses and household durables
• The weakening Australian dollar, which fell to just $0.59 in the second quarter of 2000, has favored Australian exporters to compete in the global market with a lower price
• Imported goods and services had minimal increases at 0.2% in the second quarter of 2000 due to decreased business investment in general
• Import of intermediate goods such as manufacturing inputs (e.g. fuels and lubricants) shows the strongest growth and represents 40% of the total increase in import of goods and services; whereas imports of consumption goods and capital goods only rose by 6% and 1.3% representatively.
• The prices increase of imported goods averaged at 9.3% in year 2000 with the largest rise in mineral fuels and chemical products.
• Inflation is expected to surpass the 2-3% upper limit set by the RBA (Reserve Bank of Australia) until the end of 2001 due to the current wage-price spiral.
• The wages growth of ordinary full-time adults averaged 4.4% in year 2000.