6 Growth of this narrower measure of activity has increased over the past year and is, therefore, helping to offset the fall in mining investment, including by absorbing labour being freed up from the resources sector (Graph 6). Growth of non-mining activity is actually not that far from its historical average.
From the vantage point of most central banks, the world could hardly, in some respects, look more unusual. Policy rates in the major advanced jurisdictions have been near zero for six years now. In fact, official deposit rates in the euro area and some other European countries are now negative. As it turns out, the “zero lower bound” wasn’t actually at zero.