Australian National Accounts – uncertain outlook with exports dominant

Today, the Australian Bureau of Statistics released the – September-quarter 2015 National Accounts data – which showed that real GDP grew by 0.9 per cent in the three months to September 2015, largely because there was a strong rebound in export volumes. Domestic demand contracted because both private and public investment spending was sharply negative. The other notable result was that ‘income recession’ that Australia entered in the last quarter has consolidated wth the total market value of goods and services (GDP) outpacing the flow that Australian residents enjoy as income. Real net national disposable income fell by a further 0.1 per cent over the quarter and 1.0 per cent over the last year. While private consumption growth remained positive, the savings ratio fell indicating that households are drawing on savings or credit to fund their on-going spending in the fact of weak wages growth and declining Real net national disposable income overall and per capita. Today’s data is positive in the sense that growth has not collapsed given the poor investment spending performance. But the reliance on net exports (with export growth and import contraction) provides a very uncertain outlook.

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