An Asia-led resources boom had helped Australia dodge recession, but its reliance on mining exports and a rallying currency posed a “major economic challenge,” trade officials warned yesterday
The WTO said a “virtual doubling” in Chinese demand for Australia’s raw materials had lifted its terms of trade to 60-year highs, driving a record run of the Australian dollar above parity with the greenback.
Growth had bottomed at just 1.4 percent during the depths of the global crisis and its prospects were strong, with Australia “still considered one of the most competitive economies in the world.”
However, “soaring export prices and low unemployment” of 5 percent appeared to have bred complacency about reform, the WTO said, with a “marked decline in multi-factor productivity growth.”
The economy’s heavy reliance on mining exports left it dangerously exposed to commodity price fluctuations and its historically high exchange rate threatened to cripple other industries, leading to lopsided growth, the WTO said.
“The latter is likely to reduce the competitiveness of import-competing activities and non-mining exports, unless productivity in these activities can be improved,” the WTO said in its first Australian Trade Policy Review since 2007.
“This will have far--reaching implications for the pattern of growth and structure of the economy by necessitating a reallocation of domestic resources,” it added.
“Significant structural adjustment by the non-mining economy will be required,” it said.
The WTO said Australia’s “reliance on short-term external debt, and the high and growing indebtedness of households” were also downside risks.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
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