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Australia says it could follow Canada in forging deeper ties with EU

254 points · 216 comments · doener

nl · 1789602253 · focus · HN ↗
Just to be clear on this - Australia is primarily interested in methods of reducing trade barriers, not any sort of political union.
Australia is economically served well by free trade: most of its production is low cost, high quality primary production of mining outputs and agricultural goods (grains, wool and meat) where if price and quality are the primary selection criteria it wins.
The downside of this is that Australia hasn't really got any significant manufacturing or advanced technology industry.
But it has made Australia one of the best performing economies of the past 25 years.
1. someperson · 1789603920 · focus · HN ↗
  A big part of what makes Australia a better performing economy is maintaining high population growth rate of 1.5%, mostly through immigration.
  Has had implications on housing affordability, but it's great for GDP statistics.
  <a href="https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/aus/australia/population" rel="nofollow">https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/aus/aus...
  1. jojobas · 1789606210 · focus · HN ↗
    Per capita GDP is falling with every new migrant. I don't think it's the kind of GDP growth anyone wants to have.
    nl · 1789610103 · focus · HN ↗
    This isn't really right.
    GDP per capita is mostly static since a large increase pre-COVID during the explosive China growth years 2005-2020.
    Most variations since are exchange rate variations more than actual changes in GPD vs population (GDP is usually denominated in USD)[1],[2]
    Low GPD per capita is definitely NOT correlated with high migration, which decreased in the years GPD per population decreased[3]
    If anything low migration is inversely correlated with higher GDP over the last 25 years: high immigration is correlated with higher GPD per capita - but I don't think one should draw a causal link here: the cause of GDP growth in AUstralia is generally accepted as increased raw material exports to China, and that has led to higher employment.
    [1] <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=AU" rel="nofollow">https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location...
    [2] <a href="https://tradingeconomics.com/australia/gdp-per-capita" rel="nofollow">https://tradingeconomics.com/australia/gdp-per-capita
    [3] <a href="https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/aus/australia/net-migration" rel="nofollow">https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/aus/aus...

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