Australia's Recession May be Over：Reserve Bank of Australia
Guy Debelle, the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), told a Senate estimates hearing on Tuesday that the bank believes the Australian economy returned to growth in the September quarter, ending the nation's first technical recession since 1991.
He revealed that the economic impacts of strict 112-day coronavirus lockdown in Melbourne, the capital city of the country's hardest-hit state Victoria, which ended on Wednesday, were not as severe as previously thought.
"Our best guess is it looks like the September quarter for the country recorded positive growth rather than slightly negative," Debelle said, according to The Australian report on Wednesday.
"As best as we can tell, the growth elsewhere in the country was more than the drag from Victoria, and possibly the drag from Victoria was a little less than what we guessed back in August."
Australia's gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 0.3 percent in the first quarter of 2020 as a result of COVID-19 and bushfires that devastated much of the east coast early in the year.
The country's recession since 1991 was confirmed when GDP fell by a further 7 percent in the June quarter, reflecting nationwide coronavirus restrictions.
Debelle backed the government's plan to continue to spend heavily until the unemployment falls "comfortably" below 6 percent, noting that tapering support prematurely would hurt Australia's recovery from the crisis.
"The main objective is to get people back into employment," he said.
He noted that the recovery was likely to be uneven across states and territories, noting that mining in Western Australia was performing well.
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