CANBERRA, April 12 (IANS) Australian Chancellor of the Exchequer Jim Chalmers said on Wednesday the country would avoid a recession but warned the economy would slow dramatically.
Speaking after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its latest global outlook report, lowering its global growth forecast to 2.8% for 2023, Chalmers said Australia would not be immune from global headwinds, Xinhua reported.
Australia’s gross domestic product grew by about 2.7 percent in 2022, and the International Monetary Fund expects growth to slow to 1.6 percent in 2023 and 1.7 percent in 2024.
The outlook is in line with those of the Treasury Department, which forecast growth of 1.5 percent in 2023 and 2024.
“The situation in the world has become more complex and more difficult even over the past few months, and therefore we will not be completely immune from that,” Chalmers told local media on Wednesday before flying to Washington for meetings. with his G20 counterparts.
“The Treasury expects our economy to slow significantly later this year because of this combination of the global slowdown and the impact of higher interest rates here at home as well.”
In May, Chalmers will present his second federal budget since taking office in 2022.
He said the government should manage to provide cost-of-living relief to Australians without increasing inflation.
“We need to lay the foundations for future growth in our economy, at the same time that we are trying to make ourselves more resilient to these types of international shocks,” he said.
– Jans
ksk/
