With headlines about global trade wars, Brexit, an impending federal election and the state of the housing and banking sectors, working out what will impact most on business can be confusing.
But CCI CEO Chris Rodwell and ANZ Chief Economist Richard Yetsenga will sort fact from fiction at the CCI-ANZ economic breakfast – which is in its 20th year – on March 19.
Yetsenga says the word he’s heard more than any other over the last six months is “worried” and while understandable he says “of course we are all worried but that doesn’t get us very far in reality”.
“Whatever type of business we are involved in we still need to make an assessment about the extent to which we’re prudent and manage risk and the extent to which we try to take advantage of the opportunities that are there,” he says.
He says businesses that recognise economic growth is structurally lower in almost every world economy and plan for average economic growth that is slower than the past few decades will be better off.
“That is also occurring in an environment where structural change is also structurally higher. So I think the businesses that recognise the interrelationships between those two important trends are the ones that are going to be most successful.”
Yetsenga says with the handing down of the Royal Commission report this week, parameters can be placed around the scale of change that is required after a year of uncertainty.
“We’re in the midst of an enormous shift in the way the banking system’s regulated and in the way the financial system allocates credit and that is quite a substantial adjustment task, both for the sector itself as well as the rest of the economy.”
The event will also feature a Q&A with Yetsenga, CCIWA Chief Economics Rick Newnham and AFL coach Michelle Cowan.
► To book tickets to the CCIWA-ANZ economic breakfast click here.