The ABS has released its May trade figures:
The surplus is holding for now but will crash as cratered coal contacts come through over the next year.
But, what is more amusing, is this:
Services exports have boomed back since COVID. The problem is that the international students that dominate the “travel” exports number are just made up:
…wherever the ABS figures are coming from, it amounts to assuming that the average international student is spending about $78,000 per year, which is a touch more than the average Australian full-time employee can with their after-tax income.
Around 52% of international student work.
If that makes Australia their ‘centre of predominant economic interest’ then none of their spending would normally count as a services export, including their university fees. Only a strange statistical assumption has created a “$40 billion export industry” out of one that is probably closer to a $15-20 billion one. Or less. We don’t know.
That is, Australia’s entire trade surplus is a work of fiction.
