Western Australian Produced Hardwoods (Price Index of)

NAME OF ORGANISATION
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)

OVERVIEW
The index provides a measure of the movement in prices charged by timber mills and merchants for sawn locally produced Western Australian hardwoods sold within Western Australia together with exports interstate and overseas.

PURPOSE
The index is used by the Western Australian State Government and the industry to monitor price changes and for the indexation of timber royalties. The indexes provide these users with movements in prices of the major Western Australian produced hardwood timbers at a specified point in the market place.

SCOPE
The prices are collected at the mid point of the quarter, or the nearest trading day. They relate to specified standards of sawn timber and are obtained from representative suppliers of the materials (timber mills and merchants) who sell to builders, joinery workshops, furniture workshops exporters and ownerbuilders/renovators.

In general the point of pricing is that normally applicable to the transaction eg delivered on site for builders price and free on board or free on rail for exports.

As far as possible, actual transaction prices are used in the index, that is prices actually paid (ie net of any discounts received )

DATA DETAIL

Conceptual framework
The prices in the index compilation are to reflect those obtained for sawn timber by timber mills and merchants from final consumers. Final consumers are builders and construction businesses, joinery workshops, furniture manufacturers etc and interstate and overseas exporters. The prices are to be indicative of those obtained for sawn timber and excludes materials such as joinery, furniture and other 'value added' products where costs and margins may be dictated by different market influences.

Main outputs
Index numbers and percentage changes on a quarterly basis and annual financial year basis.

Classifications
Items priced for the index are classified into product groups recogninised by the industry - ie

• Green Jarrah
• Dry Jarrah
• Green Karri
• Dry Karri

Comments and/or Other Regions
The scope of the index is Western Australian produced sawn hardwood timber sold by Western Australian mills and merchants within Western Australia, interstate and overseas.

COLLECTION FREQUENCY
Quarterly

Frequency comments
Data is collected for the March, June, September and December quarters.

COLLECTION HISTORY
For the period September quarter 1992 to June quarter 1997 the items in the index were selected and allocated weights on the basis of sawn timber sold during 1992-93 to final users in Western Australia and export sales. From March quarter 1997 the items and weights have been based on 1995-96 sales. The last cycle of this collection was carried out in relation to the March quarter of 2002.

Note: an earlier series of similar timber price indexes covers the period 1982 to 1989, however there are some differences in scope, coverage and definition to the current series. This earlier data was published in ABS Cat no 6409.5.

DATA AVAILABILITY
Yes