Australian building approvals figures appear to confirm the sector is not going to come galloping to the rescue of a struggling economy.
The number of residential approvals edged up 1 per cent in seasonally adjusted terms in July but, according to estimates released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) yesterday, the declining trend which began more than a year ago is continuing.
In dollar terms, residential approvals, including alterations and additions, were down 1.2 per cent in July, while non-residential building approvals slumped 9.7 per cent.
Total approvals in value terms, residential and non-residential combined, were down by 4.4 per cent in July, by 13.5 per cent from a year earlier, and are now nine months into a downtrend, according to the ABS figures.
The July fall comes after an 18 per cent drop in the inflation-adjusted volume of approvals in the June quarter, reported with the ABS data yesterday.
