The Australian economy grew a mere 0.5 per cent in the June quarter as a steep fall in export values and capital expenditure crimped national output.
The quarterly gross domestic figure, which was slightly above the Reserve Bank of Australia's own calculations, takes the annual growth rate to the end of June to 3.1 per cent compared with 3.5 per cent at the end of March. It compares with surprisingly robust 1.1 per cent expansion in the March quarter, reflecting a benign cyclone season and the lift this gave to export volumes.
Private sector estimates of the final quarterly figure have fluctuated between 0 and 0.6 per cent in recent days on a deluge of economic data, only some of which fed into GDP.
