RBA Glenn Stevens puts faith in Australian economy

In an address to the business community in Melbourne overnight, RBA governor Glenn Stevens has put his faith in the Australian economy, believing that we can handle the global meltdown and should be “quietly confident” about the future.

At the Committee for Economic Development of Australia Council (CEDA) dinner, Mr Stevens indicated that Australia was headed for only a mild slow down.

 “With recent international and economic and financial events, the economy will probably now experience a more significant slowing than was otherwise going to occur.”

However, he stated that this was “barely detectable in some of the key official datasets”, with employment remaining quite solid and unemployment very low. 

He believes that we are likely to see “growth at quite a slow pace” in the period ahead, and that the Australian economy has not deteriorated to the extent that has been suggested as of late.

“Given the underlying strength of the economy, the biggest mistake we could make would be to talk ourselves into unnecessary economic weakness.”