Australian business confidence at lowest point since 9/11: survey

0 Comments | AFP, February, 2008

SYDNEY (AFP) — Australian business confidence slumped last month to its lowest level since the September 11 terror attacks in the United States, a survey released Tuesday said.

The National Australia Bank (NAB) said the results of its monthly business survey in January showed that confidence dropped 9.0 points to minus 4.0 index points -- its poorest measure since 2001.

The fall comes after the index slipped 1.0 point to 5.0 index points in December after dropping 3.0 points in November.

"Clearly, the sustained global financial turbulence and tighter domestic financial conditions have had a marked negative impact," NAB group chief economist Alan Oster said.

"If this proves to be sustained, we would expect to see downward adjustment in actual...