since then, housing prices in wa have declined while those in some other places have risen, so this gap may have diminished. nonetheless, my guess is that, among the australian states, the citizens of western australia bis central bankers ’ speeches are on average, probably still among the richest. even if the others gradually close the gap over time, as they well might, you are better off for having had the boom. wa has unique endowments of resources. mining has always been a cyclical business, which has long been understood. on this occasion, given the size of the boom, you've done a pretty good job of managing it. as a result, there will be permanently more income and wealth than there was before. conclusion i expect that, in a few years'time, the reserve bank board will once again meet in perth. i imagine that, by then, the current contraction in capital spending will probably have reached an end. new opportunities for growth will have emerged, resulting from things like the growth in the middle class of asia, with all what that means for demand for services as well as for energy and agricultural production. the growth of india is surely also a potential opportunity for wa – facing as you do the indian ocean, and with the advantage of relative lesser distance. a mere eight hour flight time! no doubt western australians will be looking to seize those opportunities. at the same time, this vast part of the australian continent, endowed by nature with so many resources, will still be a major player in key commodities. even if the extraordinary boom in investment was hard to digest, and even if some of the investments don't pay off quite as handsomely as hoped, it still seems that western australians will be richer for the experience. bis central bankers ’ speeches

the imf ’ s forecasts in particular have been given great prominence. our own forecasts have come down too, though they had already been a bit weaker than the imf ’ s. on these forecasts, global gdp will grow by about 3¼ per cent in 2012. that is down from about 3¾ per cent in 2011, which was about the average rate of growth over the past 15 years. on its face, this performance, should it occur, would be no disaster. after all, growth is going to be below average some of the time. if we look for things to worry about, we will certainly find them. the global outlook has a very uneven composition : some countries, particularly in europe, will record very weak outcomes. moreover it is unlikely that a moment will come any time soon when we will be able to say the problems in europe are behind us. progress will be slow and there will be periodic setbacks and bouts of heightened anxiety – that is the nature of these things. but equally, we should recognise that things have not been uniformly bad recently. the us economy has not experienced the “ double dip ” some had feared six months ago, but instead has continued growing. the us corporate sector is in very strong shape, is cashed up and will at some point be able to start moving ahead more quickly. it appears american corporations have stepped up the pace of hiring in the past few months. bis central bankers ’ speeches in china, the slowing in growth we have seen seems to have been roughly what the policymakers were looking for, and they appear to be getting on top of their inflation and housing boom problems. around the rest of asia, activity has also slowed, in part reflecting trade links with europe. but it has not slumped and as inflation comes down, policymakers have increased room to respond. the pressure on european banks to shed assets has led to some tightening of trade credit in the asian region, but at this stage the system seems to be adjusting to that without major drama. we have not, to date, seen the collapse of trade credit and trade flows we saw in late 2008. commodity prices, which had declined noticeably from their peaks in the first half of 2011, have actually moved sideways, or in some cases picked up a bit, for a few months now. they remain high by historical standards. that seems roughly consistent with the group of countries that makes up australia ’ s main trading partners expanding at a reasonable pace – expected by the im