DM Monitoring
Sydney: Australia’s economy extended its rapid recovery in the first quarter as consumers and businesses spent with abandon, lifting output back above where it was last year when pandemic lockdowns tipped the country into recession. The economy expanded by a real 1.8% in the three months to March, data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed. Economists in a Reuters poll had forecast a 1.5% rise following an upwardly revised 3.2% gain in the fourth quarter.
The solid back-to-back quarterly growth helped annual output climb 1.1% to A$525.7 billion ($408.05 billion), a major turnaround from last year’s recession low of $468.3 billion.
Australia is in rare company here with only five other countries boasting an economy that’s larger than before the pandemic, said Kristian Kolding, a partner at Deloitte Access Economics. On average, Australia’s rich world peers are 2.7% smaller than they were before the pandemic, Deloitte’s research found, with the United Kingdom shrinking almost 9%, the European Union contracting by 5% and the United States 1% smaller.
