Certainly no boom
Australia might be doing better with its economy that most OECD countries but there is certainly no boom time. The private new and expected capital expenditure figures out from the Bureau of Statistics this morning has the trend estimate for total new capital expenditure (in volume terms) falling 0.8% in the June quarter 2010 with the seasonally adjusted estimate falling 4.0%.
The trend volume estimate for buildings and structures rose 1.2% in the June quarter 2010 while the seasonally adjusted estimate fell 3.9%. The trend volume estimate for equipment, plant and machinery fell 2.5% in the June quarter 2010 while the seasonally adjusted estimate fell 4.1%.
The figures suggest that the growth in the Australian economy is still modest and thus unlikely to be producing the kind of inflationary pressures that would justify any rise in official interest rates for some time yet.
I should add that the median estimate of 17 highly paid finance industry economists surveyed by Bloomberg News was for a 2.3 percent gain in capital expenditure rather than a 4% fall.
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