Senior retailer believes 2016 could be a turning point.
Many industry players will feel relief when they hear that Harvey Norman’s CEO Katie Page believes 2016 might be the year when Australia can put the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) behind it.
While Australia generally came out of the GFC in good condition, it did cut a swathe through the foundations of the appliance industry. Long term industry players such as NEC, Doro, Hitachi and others closed their local offices, and left the Australian market. Others such as Sony and Panasonic, once industry leaders, saw their market share shrink dramatically. Meanwhile, it took retailers such as Harvey Norman considerable nerve to continue to hold their own amidst severe downturn in consumer confidence.
Page was attending the Magic Millions racing event on the Gold Coast this week, an event owned by herself and Gerry Harvey which is presently breaking records.
Page told the media that there needs to be more awareness of the soundness of the overall economy.
“It would be wonderful if this was the year the GFC was finally behind us,” she said. “There are some reasons to expect things to gradually keep improving, like historically low interest rates, low unemployment and the rise in house prices.”
Page said that Harvey Norman was seeing some positive signs overseas as well, both in its retail operations and dealings with manufacturers in the United States and Britain.