Tweet of the day: Australia is punching above its weight economically, says Wayne Swan
It appears Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan has taken RBA governor Glenn Steven’s “glass half full” speech to heart, finding something positive in the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) lastest downgrade of global growth and risk of recession warning.
Australia ranked the 15th biggest economy in the world in 2007 when Labor came to power.
In its October World Economic outlook, the IMF warned there was a one in six chance (17%) of a recession in advanced economies, while also reporting that Chinese economic growth slowing to around 7% in the first half of 2012.
The IMF has cut its global GDP forecast by 0.2 percentage points to 3.3% for 2012 and by 0.3 percentage points to 3.5% in 2013.
Forecasted growth for advanced economies in 2013 has been cut from 2% to 1.5%.