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Aerial photos of fog over Perth City this morning. Pic: Michael Wilson, WA News, 5th April 2013.....

Perth tipped to be economic hotspot

Source: The West Australian

Perth is likely to be one of the world’s economic hotspots over the next 10 years and beyond — as long as it survives the financial “wrenching” caused by the end of the mining boom.

An Oxford Economics report shows Perth will do more to boost global GDP than either Sydney or Melbourne over the next 14 years.

It found Perth could be one of the 50 biggest urban contributors to growth, adding the best part of $241 billion to global economic activity.

It would be in the same group of major economic players as New York, Shanghai, Beijing, Los Angeles, London and Shenzhen.

Cities such as Perth will be the globe’s economic drivers over coming years, helped by a 410 million increase in the number of people living in them by 2030.

The world’s 750 biggest cities will account for 61 per cent of global GDP, up from 57 per cent now.

Oxford Economics warns there is one substantial threat to Perth’s economic future.

According to the report’s authors, Perth is like cities such as Calgary in Canada, Kuwait City and Lagos in Nigeria, which are heavily dependent on the income raised from natural resources.

While the resources might be mined thousands of kilometres away, the financial gain flowed through the cities.

“The challenge for these cities is to try to sustain industrial and export diversity if they are to avoid wrenching social and economic change when resources run dry or global commodity prices fall,” it said.

Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics confirm the rest of the country is now becoming more attractive for West Australians.

In the three months to June 30, 726 people left WA for another State or Territory, the biggest quarterly exodus since late 2002.

Over the past 12 months almost 2000 people have left WA as interstate migrants. As recently as the March quarter of 2012 movement was in the other direction with a record 3395 shifting to WA.

There has also been a sharp drop in the number of international migrants moving to WA. Net international migration dropped to 2123 in the June quarter, the smallest number since mid-2004.