Australia’s economic growth slowed further in Q4, adding to signals for rate cuts

Australian gross domestic product (GDP) rose 0.2% in the fourth quarter, compared with an upwardly revised 0.3% expansion in the third quarter and missing forecasts of 0.3%.

Annualized figure showed that growth slowed to 1.5% in Q4, down from 2.1% in the previous three-month period, hitting the lowest since early 2021, when the economy was emerging from recession, caused by Coronavirus pandemic

The fact that Australia’s economy barely grew during the last quarter of 2023, warned that high borrowing cost strongly hurt demand and spending, prompting the policymakers to shift risks in the economy from inflation to growth and adds to market bets that the RBA’s next move in monetary policy will be rate cut.

The separate data showed that household spending did not contribute at all to economic growth in the fourth quarter as the most of household spending were on essentials, such as food, rents, electricity and health, almost completely sidelining spending on restaurants, cafes, hotels, as well as clothing, footwear, new cars purchases and housing investment.

Almost complete shift on spending into just covering high cost of living, points to the depth of the crisis and alerts officials to act and prevent possible worse scenarios, as focus shifted from current action to contain inflation to stimulating economic growth.

Economists expect the economy to slow further in coming months and to start picking up in the second half of the year, while markets expect the RBA to deliver the first rate cut in August.