The local Aussie press reports that “Westpac’s chief economist Robert Rennie” said in a TV interview on Sunday that liquefied natural gas projects set to come online starting from the second half of 2014 “could push the Australian dollar back to parity”, and that global growth remains weak while appetite for high-yielding currencies is high.
Rennie says:
“There are two or three ways that LNG impacts directly on the Australian dollar
- It creates gross domestic product
- It also reduces our reliance on foreign capital and that’s important when we think about the Australian dollar on a long-term basis
- It changes market perception about the outlook for the Australian dollar as well
that’s a significant driver for our expectations for the dollar to push back towards parity through 2016 and into 2017”
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That has the early NZ market chattering, though as of now the AUD hasn’t responded much, barely moved from Friday’s US closing level.
There is also a fuller report at an ungated Australian Financial Review piece: LNG projects set to fuel rise in $A
