Australia’s natural disasters bill hits $3.5 billion in 2022, billions more to come

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Flooding across Australia in 2022 cost the country billions of dollars, government data has revealed.

According to Treasury estimates released on Friday, reduced activity in the mining, agriculture, construction, retail and accommodation sectors due to severe weather events and flooding cut gross domestic product growth by 0.25 percent.

Combined with a 16 percent rise in the cost of fruit and vegetables amid disrupted supply chains, the Treasury estimated the floods cost the economy 5 billion Australian dollars (3.4 billion U.S. dollars).

In the previous 10 years, the price of fruit and vegetables rose by an average of 2.5 percent annually.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers, who on Friday visited communities in New South Wales that were affected by catastrophic flooding between February and April last year, flagged additional funding for natural disaster resilience measures in May’s federal budget.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency