International Trade: Supplementary Information, Calendar Year methodology

This publication contains data on Australia's international trade in goods on a Balance of Payments basis (Key statistics section only) and on an international merchandise trade basis (in the Total merchandise and services trade by country section and the Data downloads) and international trade in services on a balance of payments basis.

Annual merchandise data for selected countries and annual services data by state and by country are released twice yearly. Calendar year data are usually released following the March issue of Balance of Payments and International Investment Position, Australia and financial year data are usually released following the September issue.

Additional data on Australia’s international trade in goods and services are available in Balance of Payments and International Investment Position, Australia and International Trade in Goods.   

The conceptual framework used in compiling Australia’s international merchandise trade statistics is set out in the United Nation’s publication International Merchandise Trade Statistics: Concepts and Definitions, Series M, No. 52, Rev. 3 (IMTS 2010). More detailed information relating to the underlying concepts and structure, and the sources, methods and terms used in compiling estimates are available in International Merchandise Trade, Australia: Concepts, Sources and Methods and International Trade in Services; Concepts, Sources and Methods.

The conceptual framework used in compiling Australia's balance of payments statistics is based on the Sixth Edition of the International Monetary Fund's Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual (BPM6, 2008).

Care should be exercised in the use and interpretation of estimates in this publication. While every effort is made to ensure the accuracy and reliability of all estimates, the transactions occurring in international trade in goods and services are of many different kinds, and therefore the compilation of trade estimates entails the use of a very wide range of statistical data of varying degrees of accuracy and timeliness.

This publication includes historical revisions which are also included in the Australian System of National Accounts, 2023-24 and the September 2024 issue of Balance of Payments and International Investment Position, Australia, released in December 2024.

Merchandise exports and imports statistics presented in this publication are on an international merchandise trade basis, both exports and imports entries are shown without regard to sign.

International trade in services statistics are presented on a balance of payments basis. In keeping with balance of payments conventions, credit entries (exports) are shown without sign and debit items (imports) are shown as negative entries.

In September Quarter 2024, the ABS incorporated new methods for estimating selected digital services imports (debits) and exports (credits) with the International Trade in Services series revised back to 2009.

For more information see the article Introduction of digital services in the Balance of Payments.

International Trade in Services estimates are based, in part, on Australian Business Register (ABR) data supplied by the Registrar to the ABS under A New Tax System (Australian Business Number) Act 1999 and tax data supplied by the Australian Tax Office (ATO) to the ABS under the Taxation Administration Act 1953. These require that such data is only used for the purpose of carrying out functions of the ABS. No individual information collected under the Census and Statistics Act 1905 is provided back to the Registrar or ATO for administrative or regulatory purposes. Any discussion of data limitations or weaknesses is in the context of using the data for statistical purposes, and is not related to the ability of the data to support the ABR or ATO’s core operational requirements.

Legislative requirements to ensure privacy and secrecy of this data have been followed. In accordance with the Census and Statistics Act 1905, results have been confidentialised to ensure that they are not likely to enable identification of a particular person or organization.

Trade in goods data included in the Key Statistics section is on a Balance of Payments basis (original, current prices), while the remainder of trade in goods data is published on an international merchandise trade basis. For further information about the differences in compilation, see International Merchandise Trade, Australia: Concepts, Sources and Methods.

Partner country estimates are produced to provide a summary of Australia’s international merchandise trade with selected trading partners.

International merchandise trade data in this publication are presented in a six-month aggregation. This aggregated basis allows for data that are subject to confidentiality restrictions to be released, provided there is sufficient trade to preserve confidentiality.

Additional information on Australia’s international merchandise exports and imports, by country, are presented as a monthly times series, with additional countries and country groups in Tables 14a and 14b of International Trade in Goods. These tables differ from data presented in Tables 1 and 2 of this publication as they are subject to an increased level of confidentiality restrictions. For more information on confidentiality see the Data Confidentiality section of International Merchandise Trade, Australia: Concepts, Sources and Methods.

Partner country estimates are produced to provide a summary of Australia's trade in services with major trading partners.

The country allocations are based on a number of indicators, including merchandise trade statistics, overseas passenger arrivals and departures data, data provided by the Department of Home Affairs and the Survey of International Trade in Services. A comprehensive explanation of data sources is provided in the International Trade in Services; Concepts, Sources and Methods.

The release of statistics for certain merchandise trade commodities is restricted to prevent the identification of the activities of an individual business, where this is requested by the business concerned. These restrictions do not affect the total value of exports and imports, but they can affect statistics at the country, state and commodity levels, and other details only available on request such as Australian ports. For further information on confidentiality, refer to International Merchandise Trade, Australia: Concepts, Sources and Methods. 

The ABS collects data from individuals and organisations as a routine part of statistical compilation. There is a legal and ethical responsibility for the ABS to respect and maintain the secrecy, privacy and identify of those providing the information.

For international trade in services statistics two main treatments are used to manage the risk of disclosure – data modification and data reduction.

Data modification (perturbation) involves adding a random component to some, or all, cells in a table. This technique ensures that the total does not change (this is important for economic statistics that feed into the National Accounts) and generally results in a minimal loss of information (reasonable estimates of the true value are maintained).

International trade in services statistics implement data removal only in cases where data modification is not possible (too few contributing statistics) or would result in the economic narrative being severely compromised. In these cases, cells with dominant contributors or a small number of contributors may be suppressed.

These data treatments are applied at each level of the services product classifications, as well as to other dimensions (e.g. state and country) and cross-classifications. In each case, the upper levels of the hierarchy are preserved over the lower levels (e.g. personal, cultural and recreational services will be prioritised over audio-visual and related services).

More information on the ABS’ confidentiality framework, and treatments, can be found in the ABS Confidentiality Series.

The concept of residency is fundamental in determining which transactions are in scope of the balance of payments. 

In economic statistics, the residence of individuals, businesses, governments and other organisations is determined by the economic territory to which they have the strongest connection rather than on location, nationality, or legal status (e.g. citizenship). This is expressed as the ‘centre of predominant economic interest’ of the individual, business, government or organisation. This is generally based on significant economic activity and transactions within a country’s economic territory, and the intent to engage with these activities. 

Services credits are classified by the state of provision, while services debits are classified by the state of consumption. The state allocations for transportation, travel, freight insurance and telecommunication services are based on a number of indicators including merchandise trade statistics by state, overseas passenger arrivals and departures by state of clearance and data provided by the Department of Home Affairs. The allocation for other services is primarily based on the location of the business reporting the information, which serves as a proxy for the state of provision/consumption of that service. The data should be used with care but are considered suitable for analysis over time. Allocation of digital services by state is primarily based on Estimate Resident Population for that period.

Where figures have been rounded, discrepancies may occur between sums of the component items and totals. 

In Tables 5 to 8 some small countries are included with other countries:

• Belgium and Luxembourg are included in one item due to their long-standing close economic relations.
• The Channel Islands and Isle of Man are included with the United Kingdom.
• Remote territories are generally included within geographical country groups rather than aggregated into their parent country.

The composition of some of the following groups changes from the period in which countries gain or lose membership to that group.

Users may also wish to refer to the following publications which can be downloaded free of charge from the ABS website:

• International Trade in Goods – issued monthly
• Balance of Payments and International Investment Position, Australia – issued quarterly
• International Trade: Supplementary Information, Financial Year – issued annually
• International Trade in Services; Concepts, Sources and Methods
• International Merchandise Trade, Australia: Concepts, Sources and Methods
• .Stat Data Explorer

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