Australia's economy slows sharply

ASTANA. KAZINFORM - Australia's economy slowed sharply in the second half of 2018, confounding an optimistic message from the country's central bank and stoking the case for interest-rate cuts before the end of the year, according to a Dow Jones report supplied to EFE on Wednesday.

Gross domestic product grew by 0.2% in the fourth quarter from the previous three months and by 2.3% from a year earlier, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said Wednesday.