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Last week, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released its export/import price index, which signaled an enormous 11.0% increase in Australia’s terms-of-trade over the March quarter 2021 and a 15.8% increase through the year:
Australia’s terms-of-trade should record a massive rise in Q1 2021.
This surge in the export/import price index was driven by a 18.2% quarterly rise in metalliferous ores and metal scrap prices, caused by strong iron ore demand from China and constrained global supply owing to the tragic dam failure at a Vale mine in Brazil in early 2019.
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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.