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http://money.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=757568


Westfield sees growth in Australia, NZ
26/02/2009 12:12:12 PM
Westfield

The world's biggest listed shopping centre owner Westfield Group says it expects growth in the Australian and New Zealand retail market in fiscal 2009.

"All the indicators out of Australia seem to be strong, the consumer is still spending, we are seeing good growth in our centres as we did in 2008," Westfield Group managing directors Steven Lowy told journalists during a teleconference on Thursday.

"We would be confident that we can achieve from Australia and New Zealand three or four per cent growth in 2009 and that's clearly offset by small reductions in the UK and the US."

Mr Lowy said in Australia, the Christmas period was a good trading period and it had flowed into January.

"We have almost full occupancy of our business in Australia."

Mr Lowy said the federal government's $10.4 billion stimulus package announced late last year, had also helped consumer confidence.

"In Australia, the sales results that we have shown in the third quarter of last year that have flowed on to January this year - it probably had a positive impact from the stimulus package."

"It's a much more difficult question to answer overseas, (the stimulus package) is very new but one would expect that these stimulus packages are designed to promote economic activity in each country and that we would be a beneficiary of that."

Westfield on Thursday reported a bottom line net loss for calendar 2008 of $2.197 billion on Thursday, reflecting the impact of property revaluations.

Its operating earnings were $1.943 billion, up 10.4 per cent.

The group declared a final distribution of 53.25 cents, making total distributions for fiscal 2008 of $1.065.

At 1149 AEDT on Thursday, Westfield shares were 43 cents or 4.41 per cent higher at $10.18.