5206.0 - Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product, Mar 2008  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 04/06/2008   
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MARCH KEY FIGURES

% change Dec qtr 07 to Mar qtr 08
% change Mar qtr 07 to Mar qtr 08

GDP (Chain volume measure)
Trend
0.7
3.7
Seasonally adjusted
0.6
3.6
Final consumption expenditure (Chain volume measure)
Trend
1.1
4.5
Seasonally adjusted
0.6
4.1
Gross fixed capital formation (Chain volume measure)
Trend
0.7
5.6
Seasonally adjusted
1.6
6.6
GDP chain price index
Original
1.3
3.1
Terms of trade
Seasonally adjusted
1.1
1.1
Real net national disposable income
Trend
0.9
4.2
Seasonally adjusted
1.1
4.2


GDP growth rates, Volume measures, quarterly change
Graph: GDP growth rates, Volume measures, quarterly change

Contributions to GDP growth, Expenditure: Seasonally adjusted
Graph: Contributions to GDP growth, Expenditure: Seasonally adjusted




MARCH KEY POINTS


KEY AGGREGATES
  • In trend terms, both GDP and Non-farm GDP increased by 0.7%. GDP per hour worked in the market sector also rose 0.7% and the Household saving ratio was 0.9.
  • In seasonally adjusted terms, GDP increased by 0.6% in the March quarter. Non-farm GDP increased by 0.7%. The Terms of trade rose 1.1% and Real gross domestic income rose 0.8%.


EXPENDITURE ON GDP
  • In seasonally adjusted terms, the main contributors to the increase in expenditure on GDP were Household final consumption expenditure (0.4 percentage points), New engineering construction and National-defence capital expenditure (both 0.3 percentage points). The largest negative contribution came from Imports of goods and services (-0.8 percentage points).


INDUSTRY GROSS VALUE ADDED
  • In seasonally adjusted terms, Property and business services contributed 0.3 percentage points to GDP growth, Manufacturing and Construction contributed 0.2 percentage points, Mining, Transport and Storage, Finance and Insurance and Health and Communication services contributed 0.1 percentage points. Agriculture, forestry and fishing detracted 0.1 percentage points from GDP growth.


NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE (QUARTER) Release Date
June 2008 3 September 2008
September 2008 3 December 2008



REVISIONS IN THIS ISSUE

Revisions have been made to a number of aggregates as follows:
  • the normal quarterly revisions due to the incorporation of more up-to-date source data and concurrent seasonal adjustment. Of note are revisions to quarters from 2006-07 onwards for household consumption, gross operating surplus for all sectors with the exception of the public sector, gross mixed income, gross value added for agriculture and finance and insurance, and household property income receivable and payable.
  • Government Finance Statistics benchmark data for 2006-07 have been incorporated into the government consumption, and public gross fixed capital formation, private non dwelling construction and net purchases of second hand assets estimates.

The overall effect of these revisions has been to increase growth in the seasonally adjusted volume measure of GDP in December quarter 2007 by 0.1 percentage points, and for 2006-07 by 0.1 percentage points.


CHANGES IN THIS ISSUE

The global financial crisis has caused changes in the structure and behaviour of financial markets. Sudden shifts in structural relationships which have existed for some time mean that data supplied by businesses to the ABS and ABS editing and compilation practices may not reflect the impact of these changes fully and in a timely manner. The ABS is working with providers and reviewing and updating, where needed, a range of methods relating to the collection and compilation of financial sector output, income, transactions, positions and prices.

A new indicator series was implemented in the national accounts for both the financial corporations gross operating surplus and gross value added of the finance and insurance industry. The new series reflects the compilation methodology of the annual estimates of financial corporations gross operating surplus.

Household consumption has incorporated new indicators for finance and insurance from September 2006 and this has seen an upward revision to both current price and volume estimates.


INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070 or Steve Whennan on Canberra (02) 6252 6711, email <national.accounts@ abs.gov.au>.