Economic growth rate to ease: Treasury

Western Australia's economic growth rate is expected to revert to the long-term average of about 4.6 per cent per year after the boom conditions experienced this year.
The Department of Treasury & Finance has forecast growth of 6.0 per cent this year, easing to 4.5 per cent and 5.0 per cent over each of the next two years.
This growth performance means that WA will continue to strongly outperform most other states.
Treasury has forecast that net exports will make a significant positive contribution to growth, as past investment in the mining and energy sector delivers increased production volumes and higher exports.
This reverses the trend from recent years when import growth outstripped exports.
Treasury said growth in household consumption and business investment was expected to ease in 2007-08 while housing investment was expected to decline by 2.5 per cent.
It said commodity prices were expected to fall over the next few years after hitting record levels this year.

WA's low unemployment rate means that jobs growth will be only about two per cent a year.
This also means that wages growth will be relatively high, at about 4.25 per cent.
Treasury said this was fairly contained given the strength of labour demand.