The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has forecast a slow recovery for Australia, prompting speculation that the government’s budget forecasts for growth are too optimistic.
Previously unreported IMF staff estimates obtained by The Australian suggest the economy will struggle to return to long-trend annual growth of just over 3 per cent before 2014, in spite of government forecasts of annual growth of up to 4.5 per cent by 2011.
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The revelation coincides with a Newspoll conducted for the daily which found only 30 per cent of voters believed Wayne Swan's assurance that the budget would return to surplus by 2015-16.