Australia tops in beating economic downturn

The world has voted Australia as the best place to run a business during the economic downturn, followed by China.

Australia is the place for businesses to be in to beat the global financial crisis, according to the results of a recent survey that quizzed 7500 international business people from 24 countries. Respondents of the survey identified Australia as the country that was surviving the economic downturn the best with 20 per cent of the respondents citing it as the clear leader.

The results would probably not surprise local economists who have maintained all along the nation was well-placed to weather the global financial crisis.

China took the second place in the Servcorp International Business Confidence Survey, which was conducted last month. Of the business people surveyed, 15.9 per cent voted Australia as the best-placed for surviving the crisis with India and Singapore sharing the third slot with 6.1 per cent votes each.

The US came in at the 13 th spot with The Netherlands, while England finished lower down in the 18 th place.

Brazil, Morocco, The Philippines, Scotland, Sri Lanka, Syria and Thailand were thought to be struggling the most in the global downturn.

Taine Moufarrige, executive director Servcorp, said the global consensus heavily favoured Australia as one of the countries least affected by the global downturn.

"When looking at the key indicators, our banks are strong; our property prices have not crashed like they have in the US and the UK; although resource prices have gone down there is still a big demand for our resources; and unemployment, although it is picking up, we have not seen the big drop like we have seen everywhere else," Moufarrige said.

"So I think people just look at Australia, see how far away it is, see our institutions are strong, see our interest rates have not dropped as far as everywhere else and think that it is probably one of the least-affected places in the recession."

"In my experience working with international businesses around the world, especially during the last six months, I've noticed how relatively unaffected (are) Australian businesses and... business persons' attitude by the economic downturn," Servcorp executive director Taine Moufarrige said.

Australian businessmen also consider Australia to be the best place to be in for riding out the crisis with China in second place and Singapore taking the third spot.

"What the survey reveals is that despite the global economy giving the world a hard knock, Australian businesses remain in good shape and should emerge from the global economic crisis even stronger than before," Moufarrige said.

According to the survey Australian businesses considered pessimistic media reports as their number one concern while more than 25 per cent businesspeople said they were worried about the way the government responded to the global financial crisis.

Moufarrige said that he thought that the doom and gloom reports that Australians hear every day were harmful to Australian businesses and held them back from seeing the opportunities in the economic crisis.

The survey spread over a two-week period, was conducted in April to understand the current mood, business morale and impact the economic downturn has had on businesses around the world.

International Perspective:
The countries perceived to be surviving the economic crisis the best, as voted by international businesspeople are:

Australian Perspective:
The countries perceived to be surviving the economic crisis the best, as voted by Australian businesspeople are: