Australia: Growth to gain more momentum during 2018 - NAB

Tony Kelly, Senior Economist at NAB, suggests that after a somewhat disappointing 2017 they continue to expect growth to gain more momentum during 2018 – with GDP increasing by around 3% through the year or 2.8% in year average terms.

Key Quotes

“This reflects increased government infrastructure spending, some continued improvement in non-mining business investment and the impact of increasing LNG exports, despite seeing little pick up in the speed of consumption growth this year. With indicators pointing to continuing strong jobs growth unemployment is expected to fall to around 5% by the end of 2018, which should place some upwards pressure on wages. This environment – together with above trend global growth – is consistent with the RBA gradually withdrawing emergency low monetary policy settings from late 2018. However nothing will happen until wages growth accelerates and the RBA will be very cautious and data driven.”