Australia has gone an incredible 23 years without a recession

Much like a flight to Sydney, the Australian economy has remained aloft for an incredibly long time.

Today’s numbers for the second quarter showed that Australian GDP grew 0.5%, compared to the first quarter. That’s the slowest rate in over a year, but not too shabby if you consider that Australia is trying to navigate the giant risk to its export-driven business model represented by a slowing China. (China is Australia’s largest trading partner.)

And year-over-year the Australian economy is up 3.1%. In fact, the last time Australia’s economy shrank year-over-year was during the fourth quarter of 1991. (It hasn’t had two consecutive quarters of GDP contraction, the conventional definition of a recession, in 23 years.)

For the record, the Netherlands had an event better streak of economy growth, 27 years which lasted from the late 1980s until the financial crisis of 2008 pushed the global economy into the Great Recession.