Australia’s terms-of-trade slumps to 11-year low

Advertisement

By Leith van Onselen

Within today’s data dump of balance of payments data that feeds into tomorrow’s national accounts release for March was the important news that Australia’s terms-of-trade has fallen another 1.9% (seasonally adjusted) and 2.4% (trend) over the quarter to be down by 11.4% (seasonally adjusted) and 11.6% (trend) over the year (see next chart).

ScreenHunter_13239 May. 31 12.02

As you can see, Australia’s terms-of-trade has dipped well below the GFC low and is now at its lowest level since June 2005; although it remains well above pre-boom historical norms and still has much further to fall.

The full text of this article is available to MacroBusiness subscribers

$1 for your first month, then:
Cancel at any time through our billing provider, Stripe
About the author
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.