An interesting chart here from Deutsche today:
The temptation is to jump to the conclusion that domestic demand is slumping too. We have seen a range of indicators to suggest a slowdown including various business surveys (though not NAB yet), inflation, ANZ job ads and the PMIs. No doubt this is part of the story however there are two other factor at work that mitigate against concluding that domestic demand is crashing.
First, the big fall will at least in part be the result of the falling dollar which tumbled through H2 last year and triggered a nice upturn in domestic manufacturing activity (ex-cars). Some of that will be import competing business that will drive down port volumes.
