A jostle for stability and sustainable growth had been the direction of Australian businesses whether big or small in the last nine months, two separate research surveys conducted by the Westpac Banking Corp. and the National Australia Bank had shown.

In Westpac Banking Corp. and the Melbourne Institute's leading economic indicators index, which is a gauge of future economic growth, fell 0.1 point to 270 from a month earlier as September figures stood at 4.6 percent, slipping from 5.8 percent gains recorded in August.

Westpac's index keeps track of eight major economic indicators of activity, such as company profits and productivity, to gauge how the economy will perform in the next three to nine months.

In a related Bloomberg report, Westpac noted: "there is a solid pace of expansion in the Australian economy, but the pace has slowed down abruptly in September."

It said the inflationary pressures have cast a shadow on Australia, thus a further tightening of the central bank's monetary policy is seen in the next few months.

NAB's businesses survey

In a separate survey of small to medium enterprises in Australia conducted by the National Australia Bank, business conditions among Australia's small to medium sized businesses declined further in the September quarter, and are now in negative territory,

Results of the NAB survey of SMES:

  • NAB's SME business conditions index fell by 2 points to a poor -1 point in the September quarter (with 22 percent of SMEs reporting good or very good conditions and 23 percent poor or very poor conditions), the lowest reading since June 2009.

Larger businesses, however, fared significantly better, rising 3 point to 8 points. By size grouping, the weakness was concentrated in the mid sized segment; upper and lower sized segments fared considerably better.

Lower range SMEs (annual turnover $2-3m) improved by 6 points to 2 points. Mid range

SMEs (annual turnover $3.-5million) fell 5 points to -7 points: it was the worst performing segment - and the only one to record poor conditions. Upper range SMEs (annual turnover $5-10m) fell 2 points to 3 points, but was the best performing.