Australia is one of the most favorable places to invest, the Pacific Investment Management Co said Wednesday.

In a monthly investment commentary published on Pimco's Web site, founder Bill Gross named Australia, Mexico, Brazil and Canada as the safe investment sites while recession and debt fears cloud the leading economies of the United States, Europe and Japan.

"We prefer the 'cleaner' dirty shirt countries of Canada, Australia, Mexico and Brazil, where higher yields and more pristine balance sheets prevail," Gross wrote.

Pimco is still the world's biggest bond mutual fund manager with $245 billion in assets under its wing.

Gross said in his commentary that these countries will be good investment sites along with non-dollar Asian currencies.

He reiterated that "although global equities are attractive because dividend yields in many cases are higher than bonds, they're vulnerable to faltering growth."

Gross and Pimco's co-chief investment officer, Mohamed El-Erian, introduced the term "new normal" more than two years ago describing the new economic world order, particularly the U.S. and European economies suffer low growth and high unemployment.

Bloomberg data showed that as of noon Wednesday, Australia's government debt papers and yields had been steady and rates had been steady ranging from 3.89 percent for the one-year note and 4.53 percent for the 15-year.

Bloomberg reported that that the $245 billion Total Return Fund managed by Pimco has lost 1 percent in the past month, underperforming 90 percent of its peers. According to Bloomberg data, the fund's 3.2 percent return this year is worse than about two-thirds of competitors.

Treasuries have returned almost 7 percent since February, when Gross eliminated the Total Return Fund's holding of U.S government securities. He boosted Treasuries to 10 percent of assets in July from 8 percent in June, the California-based firm said on its Web site earlier this month.

Gross said in a Financial Times interview last week that it was a "mistake to bet so heavily against the price of U.S. government debt."

U.S. government bonds have returned 2.6 percent in August, the most since December 2008, as investors bet on slower growth and sought a refuge from global financial market turmoil, according to a Bank of America Merrill Lynch index.