5302.0 - Balance of Payments and International Investment Position, Australia, Mar 2010 Quality Declaration 
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 31/05/2010   
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CHANGES IN THIS AND FORTHCOMING ISSUES


CHANGES IN THIS ISSUE

Foreign assets and liabilities by industry - table 34

In this issue estimates prior to September quarter 2009 are not available. For those periods an error has been detected in the methodology used to backcast these series on an ANZSIC 2006 basis. ABS expects to be able to backcast and release these series following further investigations.


Selected international accounts ratios - table 35

As advised in the December quarter 2009 issue, the methodology and presentation of selected international accounts ratios (table 35) has changed from this issue.

The major changes are:

  • Net International Investment Position, Net foreign equity and Net foreign debt are available as ratios to Gross National Income (GNI) in addition to Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
  • Current account data used in calculating the ratios is no longer a moving average of the last four quarters, but uses single quarter data. For example, June quarter 2009 current account ratios to GDP will be calculated as the value of the seasonally adjusted current account item divided by the value of seasonally adjusted GDP for that quarter - previously it was the value of the four quarters of current account data to June 2009 divided by the value of the four quarters of GDP data to June 2009.
  • Quarterly series use seasonally adjusted data (unless otherwise indicated). Original data are used for Net International Investment Position series which do not have seasonality. These are footnoted accordingly. However, seasonally adjusted GDP and GNI are used in the ratios.

As the international accounts are released prior to the national accounts, current quarter GDP and GNI are not available and are annotated 'nya'. The previous quarter's value, or year ended previous quarter, will be used to calculate a preliminary ratio for the current quarter.


CHANGES IN FORTHCOMING ISSUES

Changes to treatment of civil aircraft

The June quarter 2010 issue of this publication will introduce a change of treatment for the civil aircraft component. A new component 'Civil aircraft and confidentialised items' will be introduced. It will include Civil aircraft for all periods, and from September quarter 2008 will include all commodities subject to a 'no commodity details' or 'no value details' confidentiality restriction. This change will affect the statistics presented in Capital goods n.e.s. and Other merchandise goods from September quarter 2008, but will not revise the total value of goods debits.

The Civil aircraft series has been confidentialised since December quarter 2008, and therefore the components making up the 'Civil aircraft and confidentialised items' series will not be available at a lower level on a balance of payments basis.