Australia's strong relationship with Asia may save it from recession, Commonwealth Bank boss Ralph Norris says.
Figures out on Wednesday are likely to show the economy is slowing with economists predicting 0.4 per cent increase in gross domestic product (GDP) for the three months to the end of June, taking the annual growth rate to 2.9 per cent, the slowest rate since the last quarter of 2006.
"There is no doubt that the economy is slowing," Mr Norris told the Nine Network on Wednesday.
"We have got some advantages. We are linked into the Asian economy so therefore the impact on the Australian economy is going to be a lot less than say the UK or the European or US economies.
"So we do have that advantage. I see that we are going to have a slowing but I don't think we are going to end up in a recession."
Australia was probably now at the top of the interest rate cycle with a good chance that rates would come down further, Mr Norris said.
The Commonwealth Bank and other major lenders on Tuesday cut their variable home loan rates by up to 0.30 percentage points on the back of a quarter percentage point cut in the Reserve Bank's official cash rate.
