Re: Bankruptcies & Residential debt in Oz

[Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>]

Rob Schaap wrote:

>                                                          2001 record
> year for bankruptcy
>                     THE AGE  CANBERRA, Jan 8 AAP|Published: Tuesday
> January 8, 5:55 PM
>
>   A record number of people declared themselves bankrupt in 2001,
> figures released today showed.

hmm, so what's with this?

Doug

----

ASIA-PACIFIC: New data show strong growth in Australia
Financial Times; Jan 8, 2002
By REUTERS: AGENCY MATERIAL and STEPHEN WYATT


The Australian economy's strong growth was underpinned yesterday by
healthy retail sales, strong private sector housing approvals and an
encouraging rise in job advertisements.

"Overall, these figures do not change our view that the economy
remains robust and likely to remain so through the first half of
2002," said Paul Brennan, chief economist with Salomon Smith Barney
in Sydney.

Consensus forecasts are for the Australian economy to grow by 3.3 per
cent this calendar year compared with US growth of about 1 per cent.
Australia's retail sales rose 0.4 per cent in November after a 1 per
cent rise in October.

Over the past year, retail sales have risen a massive 9 per cent,
although, warns Kieran Davies, ABN Amro economist, year-on-year
comparisons are distorted by the negative impact on sales last year
by the introduction of Australia's first goods and services tax, the
Olympics and a slump in housing.

Australian new motor vehicle sales fell 2.4 per cent in December from
November and were 10 per cent lower than in December 2000, but
vehicle sales over the whole of 2001 were the fourth highest ever,
just 1.8 per cent lower than in 2000.

While private-sector housing approvals increased by 5.9 per cent in
November, overall building approvals fell a sharp 9.1 per cent as the
volatile apartments component fell almost 40 per cent. This collapse
was because some large projects in Sydney and Melbourne had propped
up the total over the past few months.

The ANZ Bank's monthly job advertisement index rose 2.2 per cent in
December, recording its highest monthly increase since January last
year and ending three consecutive monthly declines.

* Unexpected heavy rain before dawn yesterday doused bushfires
burning around Sydney since Christmas Day but elsewhere along
Australia's east coast, weary firefighters continued to battle big
blazes, Reuters reports from Sydney.

While firefighters in Sydney's western Blue Mountains and the
Hawkesbury River to the north-west of the city enjoyed the smell of
wet charcoal, others fought 30ft walls of flames on the state's south
coast, which has remained dry.