0% in the 1990’s and 2000’s, with business investment and net exports being the main ‘drivers of growth’. However, between 2011 and 2015, this growth rate began to fall (9.5% and 6.7%, respectively), as growth globally began to stall and China began to transition to domestic sources for growth, with a growing middle class society having a higher demand for more goods and services to consume domestically.

Contrastingly, Australia’s mixed market economy grew just 0.3% in the September quarter of 2018, slowing distinctly from 0.9% expansion in the previous period and missing market consensus of a 0.6% advance, being the weakest rate of expansion seen since the third quarter of 2016, due mainly to a piercing slowdown in private consumption and a pull-back in non-residential construction. However, like China’s economy, government spending went up 0.5% and consumer spending by 0.3% in the third quarter of 2018, supported by national government spending (1.9%) while local government and state government consumption dropped (-0.5%). The slight increase was driven by increases in insurance and other financial services (1.6%), transport services (1.8%) and food (0.8%), while there were falls in consumption of operation of vehicles (-1%), other goods and services (-0.7%) and the purchase of vehicles (-1.3%). Furthermore, total inventories have increased AUD$47 million in the third quarter of 2018. To conclude, Australia’s economy, as seen in the stimulus, has also consistently experienced a rate of GDP growth that is steady with the average growth rate slightly decreasing over the past 5 years.

China’s rapid rate of economic growth has led to a high level of resource use and environmental degradation, therefore experiencing severe environmental problems. The Chinese government has therefore commissioned the OECD to conduct a study of the environment in 2007. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an intergovernmental economic organisation with 36 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade. This report discovered that by 2020, uncontrolled pollution would cause an appro