Unions fight over foreign workers
Union leaders are threatening to take on more federal government ministers in the fight over foreign workers as they defy calls to abandon the protest over jobs at Gina Rinehart's $9.5 billion Roy Hill mine, according to The Australian.
Cabinet ministers, including Anthony Albanese, Bill Shorten and Stephen Smith, rebuked the unions yesterday for launching a campaign against Special Minister of State Gary Gray over his part in migration deals aimed at helping to build major resource projects.
Chinese traders fear repeat of 2008 as ore piles up
Mountains of iron ore at Chinese ports used to be a sign of a booming Australian resources industry but now it has turned into a source of headaches for Chinese commodity traders, who are struggling to find buyers for their stockpiles of red dirt, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
The port of Qingdao, in the country's north, is one of the largest iron ore ports in China and is responsible for 14% of all the country's imports. It has ran out of space to take in more goods. At its peak, thousands of trucks and dozens of trains were used transport iron ore to hundreds of steel mills in China.
But now the stockpile of ore is estimated to have reached 15 million tonnes and continues growing.
Mining capex drives growth
The Reserve Bank is looking for an acceleration of activity in the first half of 2012 to get economic growth back to about trend this year. The prerequisite for that is strong mining investment, which has become a critical engine for the growth of domestic demand.
The investment boom will again drive the economy’s growth in the coming financial year, and of course mining will drive the investment boom. Spending expected by the mining industry is a whopping 44% higher than a year ago, while spending planned by manufacturers is only 2% higher, and service sector investment plans are a relatively modest 4% up.
Mining’s domestic customers and its suppliers now account for about 85% of all business investment spending in the March quarter, according to the Bureau of Statistics’ trend data.
Mining alone accounts for just over half the spending in the March quarter. Its main domestic customers – the primary metal producers, the electricity and gas industries and the petroleum and coal products manufacturers – account for another 7%. And its biggest domestic suppliers – construction, transport, storage, wholesaling and business services – spend another 23%.
Commodities sink on growth fears after weak US jobs data
Commodities tumbled after dismal economic news spurred fears global growth is slowing and eroding demand for raw materials, according to The Australian.
Brent crude, the European oil benchmark, plunged below $US100 a barrel to its lowest level in almost 17 months while US crude neared $US83 in the wake of weak manufacturing data from Asia and Europe and disappointing US jobs data.
Copper hit its lowest level in five months while cotton broke through a 28-month low.
"Their prices are getting bushwhacked because everybody's afraid that these economies are going to slow down and the demand for all these commodities is going to be diminished substantially," Excel Futures president Mark Waggoner said.
With prices of industrial and agricultural commodities in free fall, investors flocked to gold, with the August contract settling $US57.90, or 3.7%, higher at $US1622.10 a troy ounce, its highest level in nearly three weeks.
