NSW again strongest Australian economy
New South Wales was Australia’s top performing economy in 2017, followed by Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory, as it retained its tops ranking across most economic indicators in CommSec’s latest State of the States report.
CommSec looked at the performance of each state and territory regarding retail trade, dwelling starts, equipment investment, construction work, unemployment, population growth, business investment and housing finance across each quarter.
New South Wales secured the top ranking in five of these categories, which was the third year in a row it had been the top performing economy. Victoria was the second best, leading annual growth in multiple indicators.
“As we saw last quarter, Australia’s economies are in good shape but it is the two most populous states that lead the way on the back of solid activity in home purchase and construction,” Craig James, CommSec chief economist said.
Queensland showed strong employment growth, while Tasmania was top-ranked on relative population growth. South Australia shows growth in construction work and the Australian Capital Territory was the leader in housing finance. The Norther Territory showed strong growth in exports, but also had worse unemployment than in previous years.
In positive news for Western Australia, employment growth was close to the highest it had been in five years and population growth was strong, despite the end of the mining construction boom.
AUTHOR
Hannah Wootton
Recommended for you
The director of Ascent Investment and Coaching, Michael Dunjey, has been charged with 33 criminal offences.
Adviser Ratings’ latest financial landscape report finds there is a demographic of advice practices achieving an average revenue of $5 million, with only 3 per cent of practices overall seeing a revenue decline.
The FAAA is calling for regulators to take a partnership approach with financial advisers regarding incoming legislation, rather than treating the industry as “guinea pigs”.
There have been strong numbers of returning advisers this year so far, according to Wealth Data, already surpassing the same period for 2024.
