Australia announces AUD688 million economic stimulus for the construction sector

In another effort to boost the economic growth, the Australian government announced the $688 million HomeBuilder program on Thursday after the country’s Q1 GDP revealed the first contraction in three decades, as cited by Domain.com

Additional takeaways

Australians will be offered $25,000 grants to build a new home or start a major renovation under near-$700 million federal government housing package.

The plan will be restricted to people on middle incomes and to new homes and major renovations valued between $150,000 to $750,000.

The temporary scheme that will last until the end of the year, aiming to build 30,000 homes by Christmas.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the package aimed to spark jobs and stimulus for the economy.

Further comments

“There is a real hole in the housing sector as a result of the coronavirus.”

“It’s a critically important sector to the economy overall; it contributes more than $100 billion to GDP.”

“It is also employing hundreds of thousands of people as well, including sparkies and plumbers and carpenters, people we want to put back to work, to put them off the income supports that they have been getting through the crisis.”

Market reaction

 The aussie dollar fails to cheer the additional stimulus news, as the US-China tensions and resurgent US dollar demand offset upbeat Australian macro news.

The spot drops 0.30% to 0.6896, at the time of writing.