The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has today released balance of payments data for the September quarter, which revealed a widening of Australia’s current account deficit (CAD) by $619 million (5%) to $12,710 million. The result beat analyst’s estimate, which had expected the CAD to come in at $11,500 million.
The result follows an upward revision to the June quarter’s CAD to $12,090 million from $9,350 million reported previously.
On a positive note, the net surplus on goods and services rose by $2,867 million (+51%) over the September quarter in seasonally adjusted chain volume terms, which is expected to contribute 0.7 percentage points to Australia’s GDP.
On the other hand, Australia’s seasonally adjusted terms-of-trade on net goods and services fell by 3.3% over the September quarter, which will drag on national income growth (see next chart).
