Export Prices QoQ

The Export Price Index (EPI), a fixed basket price gauge, is part of the International Trade Price Indexes. It is published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Australia's national statistics agency, and covers merchandise, meaning physical goods, shipped from Australia each quarter. It includes re-exports, or imported goods shipped again without transformation, but excludes services exports. It isolates pure price change, not earnings, import prices or terms of trade, with 2011-12 at 100.0 as scale.

Prices relate to merchandise shipped during the quarters ending March, June, September and December, collected through quarterly exporter webforms with customs records. The release appears no later than 33 days after quarter end, on Thursday at 11:30am Canberra time, embargoed until release, though dates may change. Each issue shows Export and Import tables, quarterly and annual changes, drivers, contributions and downloadable time series.

Only significant revisions are published with highlights and reasons, September brings the annual reweight, and short moves need careful reading. The index has no target and deflates national accounts and payments, guiding inflation checks, contracts, policy and terms of trade.

Weights reflect export values and reset each year, so bulk commodities dominate the headline.

• Metalliferous ores and metal scrap, 31.09%: captures iron ore and other ores and scrap, the largest driver.
• Coal, coke and briquettes, 18.05%: captures thermal and metallurgical coal.
• Gas, natural and manufactured, 13.39%: captures LNG, mostly through oil linked contracts plus spot sales.
• Food and live animals, 10.76%: captures cereals, meat, vegetables and fruit.
• Gold, non-monetary, 6.14%: captures non-monetary gold for trade.
• Machinery and transport equipment, 3.69%: covers machinery and transport equipment.

Smaller parts include non-ferrous metals, chemicals, petroleum products, miscellaneous manufactures, fertilisers with lithium, textile fibres, oilseeds, beverages and oils.

The September quarter 2022 issue, published October 27, 2022, fell 3.6% after gains of 14.6% and 10.1%, but rose 25.9% through the year. Metalliferous ores fell 16.9% on weaker Chinese iron ore demand, coal fell 6.2% on soft steel demand and non-ferrous metals fell 12.7%. Gas rose 34.9% on oil linked contracts and European demand, while crude fertilisers and minerals rose 43.6% on lithium. Coal rose 134.8% and gas rose 98.6% through the year, while imports rose 3.0% for the quarter and 19.3% through the year.

1. Specification pricing: Pick tightly defined volume sellers for repeat pricing with each firm. Minor goods move with similar priced items.
2. Collection: Record prices for goods shipped in the quarter, via exporter webforms and customs records. Some monthly unit values, or value divided by quantity, fill gaps. A multilateral method with unique IDs compares each item to itself over 27 months, needs two observations and splices onto the prior index.
3. Currency conversion: Convert foreign prices to Australian dollars by dividing by foreign units per dollar. A $200 sale at 0.75 becomes $266.67, but $250.00 at 0.80, down 6.25%. Forward exchange cover is excluded.
4. Constant-quality adjustment: Strip quality change from price change, lowering the index for upgrades and raising it for downgrades. A changed description gets a new ID.
5. Elementary indexes: Average new over base prices, called price relatives, with base value shares. 4 goods with shares 30, 20, 10 and 40 reach 111.0, up 11.0%, then 119.1.
6. Aggregation and chain-linking: Price-update Lowe weights, or fixed baskets, each quarter and sum parts upward. Each September reset weights from two past financial years, except lithium on one year, and link to June levels, keeping 2011-12 at 100.0.
7. Publication: Show index levels and moves to 1 decimal from rounded levels, with point contributions to 2 decimals as root index times share. Quarterly change equals new minus old divided by old, times 100. Point change is new minus old, and the financial year means four quarters. There is no seasonal adjustment.