New growth figures this week

We should get a good idea of where the Australian economy is heading this week.

That will come when the Bureau of Statistics releases the June quarter national accounts on Wednesday.

Wayne Swan says that while Australians will have to wait till then, for those figures, the early signals have been good.

The Treasurer says other figures have shown that the outlook for business investment in Australia is “very strong.”

He says the Bureau’s latest capital expenditure figures, released last week, show that Australian businesses are planning to invest $123 billion this financial year.

This represented  a rise of 24.3 per cent over the previous financial year.

Mr Swan said he is “optimistic” about the prospects for improvement in private sector activity, that he expects to see in Wednesday’s national accounts.

That will be critical, as government stimulus programs are now close to ending..

“…I’m optimistic that we will continue to see private activity improve as our infrastructure stimulus winds down,” Mr Swan said.

He noted, though, that the global economic outlook is still not strong.

“The global economic recovery is patchy,” Mr Swan said.

“And there has been some unwelcome data abroad in recent weeks.”

Mr Swan noted that the US Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, had warned that the US economy “remains vulnerable” and that the task of economic recovery and repair “remains far from complete” in many other countries.

US growth slowed to 0.4 per cent in the June quarter and America’s unemployment rate had remained “stubbornly high” at 9.5 per cent.

Mr Swan also said high debt levels are still a concern in many European countries and Japan’s economic recovery is still “fragile.”

He said Japan’s growth slowed to just 0.1 per cent in the June quarter as private demand had stalled.