30/03/2009

It seems not a day goes by without seeing or hearing someone say something about all the doom and gloom going around and how the recession is now “official”.

 

But let’s just pause and ask ourselves, what makes it official?  It seems like we’ve let the media run the show here. 

 

Take a look around.  What is now termed as the global financial crisis is a loss of confidence.  But have you actually lost your confidence?  The media will continue to bombard us with the doom and gloom stories, but why would we allow them to affect our confidence?  Why don’t we just get on with it!

 

Here are some good new stories for this month:

 

Toyota and Hyundai say “Yes we can”

 

Despite car sales industry feeling a negative sales figure of 22 per cent in February last, market leading company Toyota said Australian sales were holding up better than in most comparable countries.  Toyota’s senior executive director of sales and marketing Mr Buttner said “although the market is tough, we should maintain our focus and recognise that motorists are now being offered some of the best-value deals they have seen for years.”  Hyundai is defying the market gloom with its sales figures up 9.3 per cent.

 

Reserve Banks’ decision not to reduce interest rate a positive indicator

 

Most business owners would have been disappointed to hear that the RBA decided not to reduce the interest rate earlier this month.  But on a brighter side this means that demand has not weakened in Australia as much as in other countries.  If interest rates were in free fall like the stock market in the US, we would be much more worried than we are now.

 

Farming, Mining and Wholesalers doing well

 

It seems farming, mining and wholesale industries’ trend of doing well in light of the global financial crisis is universally prevalent with many of the top 20 top-performing privately owned companies coming from there.  Some are boasting sales growth of as high as 22 per cent!

 

China to boom amid the gloom

 

Former US Defence Secretary and Chairman of Cohen Group William S. Cohen said recently that China will set the recovery standard for other countries to follow.  He said “We can never underestimate what China is capable of.  Whether 6.5 per cent or around 8 per cent, I think most countries would be much in favour of having something somewhere close to that, so I think China is going to do quite well.”  With Australia so closely connected to China, this means we will do well also.

 

Public Relations companies gravitating towards strength

Former Richard Constant of Kreab Gavin Anderson said "We are winning a lot of business in what you might call distressed situations.  The number of restructures globally is rising and we have been called in by a number of governments when they have got in trouble."  Local and international PR companies are exploiting the boom associated with government-stimulus spending and legislative changes.  With more reputation management rather than brand building, most PR firms in Australia are whistling their way to work.