They called it Super Tuesday in America, but it was the Australian economy that won the day.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics announced that its economy grew at an annualized rate of 3.0% in the fourth quarter of 2015, above the estimates of economists who predicted that the Aussie economy would be more negatively affected by the economic slowdown in China.
It also marked the 98th straight quarter that the Australian economy has avoided a recession. That’s right, Australia has gone almost 25 years without having two consecutive quarters of negative growth, the standard definition of a recession.
As Business Insider Australia points out, this brings the Aussie’s close to the developed-world record held by the Netherlands, whose own streak of 103 straight quarters without a recession came to a halt during the global financial crisis.
Australia has been able to avoid a recession because of its close ties to the Chinese economy. It’s wealth of natural resources and proximity to China made it the go-to supplier of China’s manufacturing boom. Although it’s been able to avoid being brought down by the Chinese slowdown thus far, many economists remain pessimistic. “We should be cautious given the poor quality of the growth, which was driven by a rise in government spending and household expenditure that relied on a run down in savings,” said Andrew Ticehurst, rate strategist at Nomura, told the Financial Times.