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Australian Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan is continuing to talk up the economy as other countries around the world slide into recession.
Swan on Wednesday refused to concede that Australia was likely to follow other nations by sliding into recession on the back of a global economic slowdown. "I don't think anything is inevitable," Swan said.
"What we have to do is everything we possibly can in the face of this very big dramatic change in the global economic outlook and what it has done to demand in our goods and services."
Swan said there was no doubt the global economy was continuing to slow, but added that Australia was in a strong position to weather the financial storm.
Most of Europe, Japan, the United States were already in recession and the Government had been acutely aware of such a prospect some time ago, the treasurer said. Swan reiterated that the Government moved early to "protect jobs and to do something about lifting demand in the economy, to strengthen our economy in the face of all of this".
The comments come as new figures showed the US economy was continuing to tank. The world's biggest economy contracted by 0.5 per cent during the September quarter, the US Department of Commerce said.
New US home sales dropped 2.9 per cent to 407,000 in November, their lowest level since January, 1991.
But Swan said Australians should remain positive about the future of the domestic economy. "We need
businesses and consumers to be out there with a positive frame of mind, and the Government is going to do everything it possibly can in the midst of the global financial crisis to encourage that."
- AAP