A weekend report from the Wall Street Journal looking at the benefits Australian exporters have received from the US-China trade war.
- Trade has been so buoyant that Australia logged its first current-account surplus-a measure of trade and financial flows with other countries-since 1975 in the second quarter of this year.
- "It seems like a contradiction," said AMP Capital chief economist Shane Oliver. "We are hearing all this talk about trade wars, which should obviously affect trade, and yet we have a record trade surplus that's been far greater than anyone expected."
(WSJ is gated, link here if you can access it)
Data on the balance of Payments is here ICYMI:
While I'm at it, trade balance first look for Q3:
The Journal notes the negatives in Australia:
- Australia faced a personal-credit crunch
- housing slump
- weak business confidence
Indeed Q2 GDP was weak (except for government spending and exports0:
- Australia GDP for Q2: 0.5% q/q (expected 0.5%)
- Australian GDP growth is under RBA forecast (again) - where now for the RBA?
The Journal piece goes on, its not all sunshine with global growth stumbling which is not a positive for Australian exports.
But, yeah, its taken some time but trade flow response to blockage in one route is benefiting another.
