After 13 consecutive quarters of trade surplus’ Australia has recorded a current account deficit for the September quarter. The September quarter highlights include:
The current account balance has reduced from a $14.7bn surplus in the June quarter to a $2.3bn deficit in the September quarter. The decrease in the current account balance was primarily caused by an $11.1bn reduction in the trade surplus, and a $5.9bn increase in the income deficit.
The net income deficit has been slowly rising since 2020 and currently sits at $33.5bn or -4.4% of GDP. The net income deficit is much higher than average, mainly driven by international investors earning increased returns from the Australian mining boom.
The record high trade surplus of 5.8% in the June quarter has reduced to 5.4% in the September quarter.
Export earnings have remained high after only suffering a decrease of 0.2% over the quarter, despite the 36.8% increase over the year to June.
Terms of trade has decreased by 6.7% from the record highs seen in the June quarter. Terms of trade remains around 62% higher than the long-run average.
Imports have grown in the September quarter, represented by an 8.2% increase. This rise is composed of a 4.1% rise in the price of imports, and a 3.9% in the volume of imports over the quarter.
Imports are now 41.3% higher than a year ago. This increase was driven by the 73.8% increase in service imports over the year.
Source: Westpac
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