29 Quotes by Jarrod Kerr

We still think commodity prices are at their peak and will gradually come off, but we've just pushed out the timing a little bit.

We're still hoping for a big rebound in export volumes this year, but we're certainly off to a shaky start. We think there's plenty of demand and that prices will be sustained -- it's just getting the product out there.

Business credit growth had been quite weak for the last few months, so a good strong rebound in business borrowings is a positive for capital expenditure, which is needed in Australia.

Growth in employment this year is likely to be substantially lower than over the past year. In that sort of environment, we forecast the central bank will leave interest rates unchanged for the rest of the year.

There is further weakness ahead for consumers. House prices are falling, home construction is soft, consumer confidence is down and oil prices have risen.

I think the bank (RBA) will welcome that with open arms and it will further confirm their idea to sit on the sidelines at this stage and ride out the blip in oil prices.

Recent soft economic numbers for Australia and the fall in the annual rate of inflation add up to an unchanged cash rate on Wednesday. In fact, we forecast an unchanged rate for all of 2006.

We've been expecting exports to pick up some of the slack of the easing domestic demand and we're not seeing this to date. So clearly there are capacity constraints out there that remain.

The prolonged sluggish performance in exports is unwelcome because exports are another area of the economy that needs to improve, given the slowdown in the domestic economy.