And here I must congratulate Westpac for taking the lead and reducing its lending rates. Lower rates will help support growth and investment in this difficult time. In support of investment and growth, the Reserve Bank now considers commercial banks’ lending to investment, small and medium size businesses and to exporters to be outside the credit ceiling.
Since December last year, the Reserve Bank has approved over $ million of loans above the credit ceiling. Economic projection As you know, we project that the economy will fall by 2.5 percent this year. There are some important factors that will determine the final outcome. First, what happens to tourism is important. There are mixed signals coming from this important industry.