CHART: Australia's Retirement Savings Pool Is Now Bigger Than Its Entire GDP

Australia has more stashed away in superannuation assets than it produces in GDP.

APRA statistics this week valued Australia’s total pool of retirement savings at $1.8 trillion as of 31 December.

That’s significantly more than the $1.54 trillion that Australia is likely to report in GDP for the 2013 calendar year, based on RBA statistics and UBS growth estimates for the December quarter.

A Business Insider Australia analysis of data from APRA and the RBA shows that the nation’s superannuation assets first overtook GDP last March.

Australian retirement funds reportedly returned a median of 17.5% in the 12 months to December 2013: their best performance in 20 years.

Deloitte expects Australia’s superannuation asset pool to grow to $7.6 trillion by 2033, but has warned that even that won’t be enough to meet government goals and let most Australians retire comfortably.

Now read: DELOITTE: Australian 30-Year-Olds Will Need More Than $1.5 Million To Retire Comfortably

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