MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Australia becomes world’s 12th economy ahead of Spain, Korea and Mexico
Australia has become the world's 12th biggest economy as it continues to out-grow recession-ravaged parts of Europe. New figures from the IMF confirmed Australia had replaced Spain as the 12th biggest economy as measured by GDP at market exchange rates. Read full article
Comments
Disclaimer & comment rulesaustralia will grow in time, to become the worlds biggest.
Oct 09th, 2012 - 11:06 pm - Link - Report abuse 0sadly we are far to busy giving our money away.
Are you on drugs? How can 20m Aussies economically outstrip huge nations with many more human and mineral resources??
Oct 10th, 2012 - 04:02 am - Link - Report abuse 0Well they have well and truly outstripped argentina.
Oct 10th, 2012 - 06:25 am - Link - Report abuse 0Makes you think doesn't it.... one hundred years ago level pegging with argentina.... similar history... similar economies.
So what made the difference ?
1/ a parliamentary democracy?
2/ mainly british stock...even today... with a positive work ethic?
3/a free market economy?
4/ all of the above??
Australia have huge natural resources , look at the size of the land mass on a map. And unlike the RG's can actually extract the resource and make some dollar!!
Oct 10th, 2012 - 07:09 am - Link - Report abuse 0While Australia is huge most of it is uninhabitable desert. As far as I'm aware it's most valued resource is uranium.
Oct 10th, 2012 - 08:07 am - Link - Report abuse 0@5 There Iron ore exports aint too shabby,along with Opal's which the Aussies produces 97% of the world's not forgetting the coal it mines,and the little matter of Australia's $28 billion per year oil and gas industry,not bad for a desert
Oct 10th, 2012 - 08:56 am - Link - Report abuse 0Australia is only lucky commodity but non-indepéndent country has no chánce to páss Mexico/Korea/Spain ovér by just 22.596.500 míllions people.
Oct 10th, 2012 - 09:02 am - Link - Report abuse 0Great place to live, even if the cost of living has rocketed in the last few years. I lived there for 2 years and might go back there at some point.
Oct 10th, 2012 - 10:14 am - Link - Report abuse 0But they are not immune from the global slowdown, their economic 'miracle' is heavily influenced by mining and selling it all to the Chinese and during this time they have still been running a budget deficit. With the slowdown affecting even the Chinese now, the mining companies have started to make redundancies. They level of government debt is manageable though
@7 Non-independent country? What on earth are you talking about? Australia has long been independent. If you read the article, Australia HAS ALREADY passed Mexico, South Korea and Spain to become the 12th largest economy. Not bad for a country of only 23 million people.
Oct 10th, 2012 - 11:07 am - Link - Report abuse 0Australia external debt U$s 1.376 trillion to 31 December 2011 and growing.
Oct 10th, 2012 - 11:18 am - Link - Report abuse 0Party last until bankers call their door with a huge bill plus interest and a long list of cuts.
So time to reduce debt ASAP until is too late...
@10 Most of Australia's external debt is private debt, not government debt. Government debt is only 23% of GDP according to the IMF.
Oct 10th, 2012 - 12:04 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Congratulations to Australia! They are a great country!!
Oct 10th, 2012 - 12:47 pm - Link - Report abuse 0@5 Australia is huge and a lot is desert but the arable parts alone would make it one of the bigger countries in the world still. Its main export is iron ore - uranium is a fairly problematic export at the moment. If and when the situation changes, this could be a massive money earner for the country.
Oct 10th, 2012 - 12:52 pm - Link - Report abuse 0@7 that is the whole point of he article. It's already happened.
@3 the reasons for Australia's success? I don't think it is a racial issue but I do think that it is the rule of law and a respect for parliamentary democracy. Australia has many nationalities and its Italian and Greek citizens are as hardworking as its Anglos, not to mention the Asians. Argentina seems to have suffered from the traditions of bad government (particularly dictatorships) and rule of law that has beset all Spanish and Portuguese speaking nations until relatively recently - can anyone name one which has not besides Gibraltar.
I also think the common law system with its emphasis on judicial independence creates stability. A true gift from the British to Australia, New Zealand, the US, Canada etc.
Gibraltar is a corruption nest and smuggling ,nothing like Australia!!
Oct 10th, 2012 - 01:01 pm - Link - Report abuse 0australia will grow,
Oct 10th, 2012 - 01:39 pm - Link - Report abuse 0give it time, a century from now, is anybodies guess.
give it time.
after all
rome was not built in a day,,
still,
it burnt down very quickly
A number of my friends have moved and are working on huge infrastructure projects, they are investing massively. The mining sector is booming , I have worked on a number of huge mining plants, truly immense, china are their main customer for raw materials. it's slowed recently as china has, but it has great potential, and it's move up the rankings do no lie, it's moving on up! What a great country and nice people.
Oct 10th, 2012 - 06:47 pm - Link - Report abuse 0There's a very large city named after my surname, over there. Cairns. I need to go there and see the city that a lot of my family were involved in. Hopefully get a warm reception lol
Oct 10th, 2012 - 08:23 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Commenting for this story is now closed.
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