FED: Recession in Aust is not inevitable: Swan

AAP General News (Australia)
12-24-2008
FED: Recession in Aust is not inevitable: Swan

CANBERRA, Dec 24 AAP - Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan is continuing to talk up the economy
as other countries around the world slide into recession.

Mr Swan on Wednesday refused to concede that Australia was likely to follow other nations
by sliding into recession on the back of a global economic slowdown.

"I don't think anything is inevitable," Mr Swan told Fairfax Radio Network on Wednesday.

"What we have to do is everything we possibly can in the face of this very big dramatic
change in the global economic outlook and what it has done to demand in our goods and
services."

Mr Swan said there was no doubt the global economy was continuing to slow, but added
that Australia was in a strong position to weather the financial storm.

Most of Europe, Japan, the United States were already in recession and the government
had been acutely aware of such a prospect some time ago, the treasurer said.

Mr Swan reiterated that the government moved early to "protect jobs and to do something
about lifting demand in the economy, to strengthen our economy in the face of all of this".

The comments come as new figures showed the US economy was continuing to tank.

The world's biggest economy contracted by 0.5 per cent during the September quarter,
the US Department of Commerce said overnight.

New US home sales dropped 2.9 per cent to 407,000 in November, their lowest level since
January, 1991, the US Department of Commerce said.

Purchases of both new and existing houses declined 7.6 per cent in November to an annual
rate of 4.43 million, the National Association of Realtors said.

It was the biggest fall since January 1989.

But Mr Swan said Australians should remain positive about the future of the domestic economy.

"We need businesses and consumers to be out there with a positive frame of mind, and
the government is going to do everything it possibly can in the midst of the global financial
crisis to encourage that."

AAP kms/ss/cdh

KEYWORD: ECONOMY SWAN

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