It insists, however, that this tepid recovery will only hold if policy makers in Washington break their impasse over the federal budget. Without action by Congress, the OECD projects that economic growth would be barely measurable at 0.3 per cent next year, and 1.3 per cent in 2013.
I have just painted a situation, ladies and gentlemen, where our major export markets – countries that account for more than 65 per cent of our total exports – are facing real crisis – perhaps, several years of anemic growth and continued high unemployment levels.