glenn stevens : overview of recent economic developments in australia opening statement by mr glenn stevens, governor of the reserve bank of australia, to the house of representatives standing committee on economics, canberra, 18 september 2015. * * * chair members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to meet with you today. the australian economy continues to progress through a major adjustment, in the midst of testing international circumstances. the terms of trade have been falling for four years and have declined by a third since their peak – though that was a very, very high peak. they are now back to about the same level as in 2006 – still about 30 per cent above their 20th century average level. resources sector capital spending has been following the terms of trade with a lag. from an extraordinarily high peak – at about 8 per cent of gdp, nearly three times the peaks seen in most previous upswings – this investment has been falling for about two and a half years. by the time it is finished, this decline will probably total something like 5 per cent of gdp. we are probably now about halfway through the decline. it is having a predictable impact on those industries and regions that had earlier experienced the effects of the boom. resources sector exports have risen strongly as the greater capacity resulting from all the investment has been put to use. australia now exports around three times the volume of iron ore that it did a decade ago, and around twice as much coal. a very large rise in exports of natural gas is in prospect over the next few years. outside the mining sector and parts of the economy most directly exposed to it, there are signs that conditions have been very gradually improving. survey - based measures of business conditions have been a bit above their longer - run average levels for some time now, and the most recent readings are about where they were in 2010. a few of the nonmining sectors have shown quite marked improvements over the past twelve months. to this we can add that the overall number of job vacancies in the economy has been increasing, even as employment opportunities in mining and some other areas diminish. the increase has not been rapid, but nonetheless the trend has clearly been upward for about two years. since this time last year, moreover, we have seen a rise of about 200 000, or about 2 per cent, in employment. the labour force participation rate and the ratio of employment to population have both started to increase. the rate of unemployment, though variable from month to month

##lc was able to produce tangible results of its investigation efforts and cause the freezing of assets with an estimated value of over one billion pesos. it also actively caused the forfeiture of assets with an estimated value of 600 million pesos. all these investigation efforts helped in the development of 11 money laundering complaints, two terrorism financing complaints, 23 applications for bank inquiry for money laundering, and three applications for bank inquiry for terrorism financing. these are only possible through the unrelenting efforts of the competent men and women of the amlcs. fourth. the amlc conducted risk assessment and strategic studies, the latest of which 1 / 2 bis central bankers'speeches assessed the philippines ’ exposure to threats linked to child pornography. it was an example of a study that made use of the rich information contained in amlc ’ s database based on the submissions of covered persons. fifth. the philippines is in the latter stage of the mutual evaluation ( me ) which gauges the country ’ s levels of technical compliance with international anti - money laundering / counterterrorism financing or aml / ctf standards as well as effectiveness of the country ’ s existing aml / ctf system. prior to the me report ( mer ), the amlc conducted a self - assessment based on the existing legal framework, operations of competent authorities, and statistics to forecast the evaluation results. on effectiveness, the assessment reflected accurate ratings for seven out of the 11 immediate outcomes ( ios ), while on technical compliance, the assessment reflected accurate ratings for 34 out of the 40 financial action task force ( fatf ) recommendations. following the adoption of the mer, the philippines has entered a 12 - month observation period, the completion of which requires the country to submit a comprehensive progress report to the asia / pacific group on money laundering ( apg ) focused on the implementation of its recommended actions. this 12 - month observation period gives us an opportunity for the country to remedy identified shortcomings in the mer. as such, i enjoin everyone to work even harder to ensure that the philippines is able to successfully exit the 12 - month observation period. we cannot afford to have the philippines in the financial action task force ’ s list of high risk and non - cooperative jurisdictions. hence, we should be very strategic in our focus for the next 12 months. with perseverance, a reinforced secretariat and a closer link with partner agencies, i am confident that we will be able to address the country ’ s weak aml / cf