phantom_opera
07-08-13, 10:29
Trade between Australia and China equaled 7.6 percent of Australia's $1.5 trillion economy last year, a dramatic threefold increase from a decade earlier, according to an Associated Press analysis of trade data. During that time, mining companies gushed multibillion dollar profits while jobs as mundane as maintenance commanded salaries above $120,000.
Now the downside of that tight embrace is being felt across Australia's mining heartlands and in its bustling cities. The number of jobless is expected to increase more than 70,000 in coming months and the government's finances are turning a deeper shade of red, forcing cuts to public services.
Andrew Howard has done well from buying and selling jumbo-sized earth moving equipment from his base at an industrial estate in the tropical northeast coast city of Mackay, the largest mining service center in Australia's richest coal country, the Bowen Basin.
At the height of the global financial crisis, he traveled to the United States to buy up machinery cheap in a depressed economy and later sold it to a resurgent Australian mining industry.
But now Howard plans to shut the doors of his business AFG Equipment in late August after operating for a decade that tracked the rise and fall of Australia's mineral boom.
"There's just absolutely nothing happening. We're just treading water," he said. "It may bounce back in 12 months, it may bounce back in five years, it's hard to say."
With China recording its fifth straight quarter of growth below 8 percent, Howard isn't optimistic that Australia's biggest export market will rekindle the cooling mining industry any time soon.
"Everyone realizes it's pretty serious this time," he said. "This is probably as bad as we've seen it."
Now the downside of that tight embrace is being felt across Australia's mining heartlands and in its bustling cities. The number of jobless is expected to increase more than 70,000 in coming months and the government's finances are turning a deeper shade of red, forcing cuts to public services.
Andrew Howard has done well from buying and selling jumbo-sized earth moving equipment from his base at an industrial estate in the tropical northeast coast city of Mackay, the largest mining service center in Australia's richest coal country, the Bowen Basin.
At the height of the global financial crisis, he traveled to the United States to buy up machinery cheap in a depressed economy and later sold it to a resurgent Australian mining industry.
But now Howard plans to shut the doors of his business AFG Equipment in late August after operating for a decade that tracked the rise and fall of Australia's mineral boom.
"There's just absolutely nothing happening. We're just treading water," he said. "It may bounce back in 12 months, it may bounce back in five years, it's hard to say."
With China recording its fifth straight quarter of growth below 8 percent, Howard isn't optimistic that Australia's biggest export market will rekindle the cooling mining industry any time soon.
"Everyone realizes it's pretty serious this time," he said. "This is probably as bad as we've seen it."