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Australia

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Aboriginal settlers arrived on the continent from Southeast Asia about 40,000 years before the first Europeans began exploration in the 17th century. No formal territorial claims were made until 1770, when Capt. James COOK took possession in the name of Great Britain. Six colonies were created in the late 18th and 19th centuries; they federated and became the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. The new country took advantage of its natural resources to rapidly develop agricultural and manufacturing industries and to make a major contribution to the British effort in World Wars I and II. In recent decades, Australia has transformed itself into an internationally competitive, advanced market economy. It boasted one of the OECD's fastest growing economies during the 1990s, a performance due in large part to economic reforms adopted in the 1980s. Long-term concerns include climate-change issues such as the depletion of the ozone layer and more frequent droughts, and management and conservation of coastal areas, especially the Great Barrier Reef.[1]

Economical characteristics

  • Currency: Australian dollar (ISO code: AUD)
  • Central bank discount rate: 4% (31 March 2010)[1]
  • Commercial banks lending rate: 6.02% (31 December 2009 )[1]
  • Stock of money (M1): $248.5 billion (31 December 2008)[1]
  • Quasi money (with M1 makes M2): $617 billion (31 December 2008)[1]


Statistics

Statistic / Year 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
GDP (million USD)[2] 380 849 405 111 369 895 384 949 455 256 598 486 674 817 724 359 820 974 1 015 220
Govt. debt (% of GDP)[3] 29.946 28.384 26.312 24.388 23.462 21.580 21.196 20.478 19.420
Govt. revenue (% of GDP)[4] 24.188 24.885 25.937 25.082 25.373 25.525 25.808 25.753 25.382
Govt. expenses (% of GDP)[5] 23.619 23.102 25.268 25.518 24.613 24.660 24.586 23.952 23.624
Debt to revenue (years) 1.238 1.141 1.014 0.972 0.925 0.845 0.821 0.795 0.765

References

Note: statistical data was rounded. Different sources may use different methodologies for their estimates. Debt to revenue is calculated by dividing the two variables from their original ('unrounded') values. It represents how long it would a government take to repay its entire debt if it used its whole revenue for this purpose.

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named CIA_AU
  2. ↑ World Bank. "Australia: GDP", from World Bank Data. Referenced 2010-10-05.
  3. ↑ World Bank. "Australia: government debt", from World Bank Data. Referenced 2010-10-05.
  4. ↑ World Bank. "Australia: government revenue", from World Bank Data. Referenced 2010-10-05.
  5. ↑ World Bank. "Australia: government expenses", from World Bank Data. Referenced 2010-10-05.

External links

Retrieved from "https://wiki.freecapitalists.org/index.php?title=Australia&oldid=539"