Amendments to Schedule 4 of Customs Tariff
Customs and Border Protection Services will be introducing significant amendments to Schedule 4 of the Customs Tariff Act. The changes will apply from 1 March 2013. More detail is available in Australian Customs Notice 2012/55.
The ABS will be publishing information on impacts to statistical data in Information Paper: Amendments to Schedule 4 of Customs Tariff (cat. no. 5368.0.55.019) to be released on 19 March 2013.
No changes to AHECC or Customs Tariff to be made on 1 January 2013
The ABS sometimes makes changes to statistical codes on 1 January and 1 July. There will be no changes to be applied to either classification as at 1 January 2013.
Malaysia - Australia Free Trade Agreement (MAFTA)
This Free Trade Agreement commenced on 1 January 2013. A new preference code was introduced:
| New preference code | Free Standing Descriptor |
| M | Goods which meet Malaysia Australia FTA rules of origin & preferential rate of duty has been claimed |
Data for the new preference code will be available from the January 2013 release of merchandise import statistics. Some labels for existing preference codes will be amended to clarify the preference scheme. New labels will be released with January 2013 data:
| Preference code | Existing label | Revised label |
| L | Leased Developed Country preferential rate of duty has been claimed | Least Developed Country preferential rate of duty has been claimed - LDC (Schedule 1, Part 2) |
| T | The Developing Country preferential rate of duty has been claimed | The Developing Country preferential rate of duty has been claimed - DCS (Schedule 1, Parts 1 and 4) |
| A | The Developing Country preferential rate of duty has been claimed - historical | The Developing Country preferential rate of duty has been claimed - DC (Schedule 1, Parts 1 and 3) |
| R | Goods manufactured in Singapore but do not meet SAFTA rules of origin receive a Developing Country ( | The Developing Country preferential rate of duty has been claimed - DCT (Schedule 1, Part 5) |
Amendment of confidentiality restriction
See the Changes in this and forthcoming issues section of International Trade in Goods and Services, Australia (cat. no. 5368.0) September 2012 issue for details.
Changes to statistics presented on a country basis:
- introduction of new countries
- changes to ABS trade overseas port classification
- changes to the developing countries category
- amendments to countries and country groups
See the Changes in this and forthcoming issues section of International Trade in Goods and Services, Australia (cat. no. 5368.0) September 2012 issue for details.
These changes also affect time series spreadsheet Table 2 in International Merchandise Imports, Australia (cat. no. 5439.0) from the October 2012 issue onwards. New time series IDs for Table 2 are shown below:
| Country | Time series IDs |
| South Sudan | A82186083K |
| Sudan | A82186084L |
Introduction of new time series spreadsheet
See the Changes in this and forthcoming issues section of International Trade in Goods and Services, Australia (cat. no. 5368.0) September 2012 issue for details.
Changes to the Foreign Trade Topics @ a Glance
Some of the links from the Foreign Trade Releases and Using Foreign Trade Statistics pages now include explanations to better direct and assist users in retrieving the needed information.
Future release dates of foreign trade publications
5368.0 – International Trade in Goods and Services
| December 2012 | 5 February 2013 |
| January 2013 | 7 March 2013 |
| February 2013 | 3 April 2013 |
| March 2013 | 7 May 2013 |
| April 2013 | 6 June 2013 |
| May 2013 | 3 July 2013 |
5439.0 – International Merchandise Imports
| January 2013 | 19 February 2013 |
| February 2013 | 20 March 2013 |
| March 2013 | 17 April 2013 |
| April 2013 | 16 May 2013 |
| May 2013 | 19 June 2013 |
| June 2013 | 17 July 2013 |
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This page first published 19 October 2006, last updated 16 January 2013 | 
