国际英语新闻：Budget predicts Australia's economy return to surplus in 2012/13

CANBERRA, May 11 (Xinhua) -- In the Australian federal budget for 2010/11 revealed on Tuesday, Treasury forecast the underlying cash balance to return to surplus, of 1 billion dollars (0.89 billion U.S. dollars) in 2012/13, three years earlier than predicted a year ago.

For financial year 2010/11, the underlying cash deficit has been expected to be 40.8 billion dollars (36.7 billion U.S. dollars), or 2.9 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), an improvement on the 57.6 billion dollars (51.76 billion U.S. dollars) forecast in May 2009.

Real GDP has been forecast to expand by 3.25 percent in 2010/11 before growing by 4.0 percent in 2011/12 compared to 2.25 percent and 4.5 percent respectively a year ago.

"The Australian economy has far outperformed the expectations of a year ago, having emerged from the global recession as the strongest performing economy in the developed world," Treasurer Wayne Swan said in budget speech on Tuesday night.

"This time last year we expected our economy to enter a recession, with GDP forecast to contract by 0.5 percent in 2009/10.

"Instead the budget estimates that GDP will grow by two percent. "

Swan has acknowledged the hit to the fiscal position from the global economic downturn with total tax receipts expected to be 110 billion dollars (98.9 billion U.S. dollars) lower in the four years to 2012/13 compared with pre-global financial crisis estimates.