Aus leading the way

Australia will help lead the world out of recession, as the local economy rebounds strongly off the back of rising consumer confidence, a survey has found. In the "first glimmer of hope" for the global economy, an Ipsos Reuters poll of 23,000 people across the globe has found that confidence is beginning to stabilise after eighteen months of decline. The upbeat analysis follows yesterday's surprise revelation that Australia has dodged a technical recession. Ipsos, a market research group, said that the resurgence of consumer confidence was strongest in the Asia Pacific region. While average global confidence remained flat, the percentage of Australians that deemed the current economic situation either 'good' or 'very good' actually jumped 6 percent, and outstripped the global average by 7 percent. "Interestingly, in the Asia Pacific region overall, including Australia, there was an increasing trend overall from 32 percent to 38 percent. This suggests that our region will lead the world out of recession and emerge relatively strongly", the Ipsos study concluded. The group said the stabilisation has been fuelled by the green shoots of improvement in US consumer confidence, alongside "significant improvements" in China and India. Meanwhile, the blame game has not shifted, with 42 percent of Australians naming the banks and financial professionals as the prime culprits in the crisis. America's former Bush administration and the current Obama administration were also blamed for the global fallout.
Surveying 23 countries, covering 75 percent of the world's gross domestic product (GDP), Ipsos found that by contrast to Australia, Europe - as well as the emerging economies of Russia and Brazil -recorded declining confidence. With Italy the only country in Europe to register a positive change – with a rise from 10 percent to 17 percent in consumer confidence. The company also found that around three quarters of Australians have cut their household spending in response to the economic downturn. This figure has not changed over the last year, indicating that the health of the economy has begun to stabilise. Australia's national accounts, published yesterday, showed that exports and household spending actually helped the economy grow by a 0.4 per cent in the first three months of the year - preventing a second consecutive quarter of negative growth that defines a recession.