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MAIN FEATURES EXPENDITURE CHAIN VOLUME MEASURES

			Trend			Seasonally adjusted
			% change Sep 08 to Dec 08	% change Dec 07 to Dec 08	% points contribution to growth in GDP Sep 08 to Dec 08	% change Sep 08 to Dec 08	% change Dec 07 to Dec 08	% points contribution to growth in GDP Sep 08 to Dec 08
Final consumption expenditure
	General government		0.4	2.8	0.1	-	2.3	-
	Households		-	0.7	-	0.1	0.6	-
Gross fixed capital formation
	Private
		Dwellings	-0.2	1.9	-	-1.2	1.0	-0.1
		Business investment	np	np	np	1.1	12.0	0.2
		Ownership transfer costs	-7.9	-25.7	-0.1	-2.7	-23.9	-
	Public		np	np	np	-1.5	6.8	-0.1
Changes in inventories
	Private non-farm		. .	. .	-0.6	. .	. .	-1.4
	Farm and public authority		. .	. .	-0.1	. .	. .	-0.3
Gross national expenditure			-0.3	1.4	-0.4	-1.5	0.6	-1.6
Exports of goods and services			-0.1	3.8	-	-0.8	3.9	-0.2
Imports of goods and services			-1.7	5.2	0.4	-6.8	2.6	1.7
Statistical discrepancy (E)			. .	. .	-0.1	. .	. .	-0.5
Gross domestic product			-0.1	0.6	-0.1	-0.5	0.3	-0.5
. . not applicable
- nil or rounded to zero (including null cells)
np not available for publication but included in totals where applicable, unless otherwise indicated

• Household final consumption expenditure increased 0.1% in seasonally adjusted terms. The main positive contributors to growth in seasonally adjusted terms were Rent and other dwelling services (up 0.6%) and Food (up 0.6%). The main negative contributors in seasonally adjusted terms were Hotels, cafes and restaurants (down 1.0%), Clothing and footwear (down 1.3%), Alcoholic beverages (down 2.4%) and Purchase of vehicles (down 1.2%).

• Private business investment increased 1.1% in seasonally adjusted terms, driven by an increase in Engineering construction investment (up 2.2%). Dwelling investment showed a decrease of 1.2% this quarter due to a decrease in New and used dwellings (down 0.2%) and a decrease in Alterations and additions (down 2.4%).

• Total inventories fell by $2,574m in trend terms and $3,781m in seasonally adjusted terms. Changes in inventories detracted 1.6 percentage points from seasonally adjusted GDP growth during the quarter.

• Exports of goods and services fell 0.1% in trend terms and fell 0.8% in seasonally adjusted terms. Seasonally adjusted Exports of goods fell 0.9%, with a fall in Non-rural (down 1.1%), offset by a rise in Rural exports (up 3.4%). The fall in Non rural exports was driven by falls in the exports of Mineral ores (down 6.9%), Transport equipment (down 17.9%) and Coal (down 3.5%).
• Imports of goods and services fell 1.7% in trend terms and fell 6.8% in seasonally adjusted terms. Imports of goods fell 5.8%, with falls in Capital goods (down 9.7%), Consumption Goods (down 8.4%) and Intermediate goods (down 2.6%).