Australia’s financial system expands 2.3% within the first quarter, slowest progress in 1½ years

Australia’s first-quarter gross home product expanded by 2.3% year-on-year, simply barely under analyst expectations.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast an growth of two.4%, in comparison with the two.7% growth within the fourth quarter of 2022. On a quarter-on-quarter foundation, GDP grew by 0.2%, in comparison with the 0.3% anticipated within the Reuters ballot.

Katherine Keenan, head of Nationwide Accounts at Australia’s Bureau of Statistics, mentioned: “That is the sixth straight rise in quarterly GDP, however the slowest progress for the reason that Covid-19 Delta lockdowns in September quarter 2021.”

“Non-public and public gross fastened capital formation had been the primary drivers of GDP progress this quarter,” Keenan mentioned.

The GDP readings are key to the Reserve Financial institution of Australia’s choice making course of for its financial coverage. Simply on Tuesday, the RBA stunned markets and raised its benchmark coverage fee by 25 foundation factors to 4.1%, an 11-year excessive.

Early Wednesday morning, Reserve Financial institution of Australia Governor Philip Lowe delivered a speech on the Morgan Stanley Australia Summit, reiterating his place that the central financial institution will search to navigate a “slim path” within the nation’s financial coverage.

On this “slim path” that Lowe envisions, Australia’s inflation returns to its 2% to three% goal vary, the financial system continues to develop, and positive aspects within the labor market are preserved.

“It’s nonetheless potential to navigate this path and our ambition is to take action. However it’s a slim path and prone to be a bumpy one, with dangers on each side,” Lowe mentioned.

Lowe clarified that the intention to protect labor market enchancment “doesn’t imply that the [RBA] will tolerate larger inflation persisting.”

As such, the choice to extend rates of interest once more was taken on Tuesday “to supply higher confidence that inflation will return to focus on inside an affordable timeframe,” he mentioned.

Lowe listed the financial datapoints that the RBA will probably be watching to craft its strikes ahead, together with the worldwide financial system, family spending, and progress in labour unit prices.

Abhijit Surya, who’s the Australia and New Zealand economist at Capital Economics, thinks that whereas GDP has slowed and is forecast to sluggish extra, productiveness progress stays “dismal.”

Surya wrote that GDP per hour labored fell by 0.3% quarter-on-quarter within the interval, leading to a 4.6% annual fall in productiveness — the most important on report.

He additionally provides that labor market knowledge means that productiveness will most definitely have weakened additional this quarter, which is able to prop up unit labour value progress and hold providers inflation stubbornly excessive.

Surya at the moment has a peak estimate of 4.35% for the RBA’s benchmark fee, however in gentle of the GDP readings and Rowe’s speech, he highlights that “there’s a actual threat that the RBA may elevate charges even larger.”