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The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today released data on capital expenditures (capex) for the March quarter, which registered a 1.6% seasonally adjusted fall in capex volumes over the quarter and a 6.1% decrease over the year (see below table).
However, the 1.6% quarterly decline beat market expectations of a 2.6% decline.
The first chart below shows actual capex by industry in dollar terms (rather than volume terms as shown above), which fell by 1.3% over the quarter. The fall was driven by “Other” capex (-5.0%), whereas mining capex (+4.8%) and manufacturing capex (+6.7%) actually rose:
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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.