News: NAB Australia business confidence resilient in face of market turmoil

SYDNEY, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Australian business conditions softened slightly in January as the drag from the mining slowdown was offset by resilience elsewhere, while confidence held up in the face of turmoil in global markets, a survey showed on Tuesday.

National Australia Bank's (NAB) monthly survey of more than 400 firms showed its index of business conditions slipped one point to +5 in January. Its business confidence index was steady at +2.

Capacity utilisation, a measure of the underlying health of the economy, inched up to 80.6 percent from 80.1 percent, NAB noted.

"The NAB Business Survey is yet to show a material negative impact on the non-mining sectors from recent financial market volatility and falling equity markets," said NAB's chief economist Alan Oster.

"However, the longer these uncertainties continue the more the risk that they will flow through, even if lower oil prices are probably a net gain to the Australian outlook."

Oster said he expects the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to hold the cash rate unchanged at a record low 2.0 percent for an extended period.

At its first policy review for 2016 last week, the RBA stood pat on rates and even saw reasons for optimism, saying there were reasonable prospects for continued growth in the economy.