Flooding in Australia’s southeast will harm the country’s projected economic growth, the Treasury has confirmed. Ahead of handing down his first federal budget on Tuesday, Jim Chalmers on Friday said modeling suggests floods in Tasmania, New South Wales and Victoria will wipe 0.25 percent off gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the final quarter of 2022.
The Treasury forecasts the floods will drive the price of fruit and vegetables up by 8 percent over the next six months. However, inflation is still expected to peak at 7.75 percent. Chalmers said the big ongoing contributor to inflation increasingly will be the impact of these natural disasters and the impact of higher electricity prices.
Source: macaubusiness.com
