The Contrasting Opinion on the Economic Impact of the Queensland Floods

A view hot from the horses mouth, or rather from the flood plains gives rise to this type of qoute:

"Several factors suggest some of the key economic impacts may be limited."

and

"The impact is set to be greater than the floods of 2008 and will have an impact on economic activity and create a marginal risk to risk to first quarter CPI"

Quotes from an article in the Business Spectator that in term reproduces a report by the Westpac/St George Bank team of Matthew Hassan, senior economist at Westpac and Justin Smirk chief economist at St George Bank. Report is entitiled "The Big Wet"

See

A deluge of economic uncertainty (a free sign up is usually required to view)

 

However a view from the cold and in any case wet Northern Hemisphere gives rise to this contrasting quote:

"The floods’ economic impact will be harsh. Some economists reckon they could cut Australia’s growth this year by up to 1%."

"With Western Australia, Queensland has counted as one of Australia’s two commodity-rich boom states, driving a so-called “two-speed economy”. Last year, Queensland accounted for 62% of Australia’s exports of black coal."

From The Economist blog Asian View

Breaking the riverbanks

 

It's going to be intersting to see who will be right.

 

 

via ScribeFire

Reserve Bank of Australia Commodity Index - Long Way Down

The RBA - The Reserve Bank of Australia -  released Index of Commodity Prices for December 2010.

From it's statement "Preliminary estimates for December indicate that the index rose by 3.2 per cent (on a monthly average basis) in SDR terms, after rising by 1.2 per cent in November"

SDR's are "Special Drawing Rights" essentially a basket of major currencies - see SDR Valuation from the IMF