Australian Economy

From ANZ: ANZ Australian Job Ads increased by 3.8 per cent in January 2020 following a 5.7 per cent fall in December 2019.

It begins.

By Gareth Aird, Senior Economist at CBA: Key Points: Non-mining business investment in Australia has eased.

Via Reuters comes some good news: Thai doctors have seen success in treating severe cases of the new coronavirus with combination of medications for flu and HIV, with initial results showing vast improvement 48 hours after applying the treatment, they said on Sunday.

It’s all good.

I am not going to sugarcoat this.

A special Sunday post for a truly unusual and alarming situation. From China this morning: At 04:00 on February 1st, 31 provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities) and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps reported 2590 newly confirmed cases (1921 cases in Hubei Province) and 315 severe cases (268 cases in Hubei Province).

As if we needed this, at the AFR: Investment in renewable energy projects collapsed by more than 50 per cent last year, according to fresh data from the Clean Energy Council that counters Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s claim of “record” spending in the area.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has released its private sector credit aggregates data for the month of December 2019: A chart showing the long-run breakdown in the components is provided below showing broad-based weakness: In particular, the flow of personal credit continues to fall, falling by 5.1% in the 2019 calendar year.

Via the UBS team: While it’s too early to know the full potential impact of coronavirus 2019-nCoV, it is clearly another negative for the economy, on top of the catastrophic bushfires.

This time in China, at News: Two Australians in China have been infected with coronavirus, Health Minister Greg Hunt has confirmed.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released export and import prices for the December quarter, which portends a sharp fall in Australia’s terms-of-trade when the national accounts are released in early March.

It’s fair to say that 2020 has already been a nightmare for Australian retailers. A fortnight ago it was reported that 161 ‘bricks-and-mortar’ stores had already shuttered in 2020. And since then, Jeans West has gone into administration (with 146 stores likely to close) and Kaufland has abandoned its planned Australian operations.

Coronavirus cases worldwide have soared again today to 7186 with deaths at 169.

Via Domain come more cases: Australian residents trapped in the epicentre of the coronavirus in China are considering rejecting the federal government’s offer to evacuate them to Christmas Island, as Qantas prepares for an emergency flight into Wuhan.

You would think a policy process is rocket surgery the way that this government butchers it.

Emma Johnston, Dean of Science at UNSW Sydney, is the latest to warn that Sydney’s water supply is under threat from a combination of population growth, reduced rainfall, greater evaporation, and contamination from bushfires.