Imports

Imports is the import side of International Trade in Goods (catalogue number 5368.0) from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. It measures goods entering Australia at current prices in million dollars. It appears as goods debits with negative sign on a balance of payments basis by change of ownership, while merchandise trade detail shows no signs.

It uses daily customs declarations through the Integrated Cargo System as a full census with no sample. It covers goods crossing the customs frontier with full declarations in Australia plus states and territories, with imports by country of origin. It leaves out monthly services and domestic sales plus transit and temporary admissions and monetary gold. Monthly balance of payments series run to 1971 and merchandise series to 1988, and the monthly issue covers goods only since September 2023.

The reference month is a calendar month, with imports recorded in the finalisation month rather than arrival or lodgement. Release comes about 4 to 6 weeks after the reference month at 11:30am Canberra time.

The exact date is announced in advance in the release calendar. Each issue brings original plus seasonally adjusted and trend series, with commodity and country detail plus quantity and value moves and revision notes. Merchandise revises the prior 6 months each month. Balance of payments series align each quarter with wider August revisions, while trend for the latest 6 months revises with each release.

Headline imports sum values in $m at current prices, not a weighted index, across end use groups plus gold.

• Consumption goods: goods mainly for household use, including food and drinks, household electrical items, clothing and leisure goods.
• Capital goods: machinery and equipment for production and transport, including industrial machines, ADP equipment, telecom gear and civil aircraft.
• Intermediate and other merchandise goods: inputs for industry and other goods, including fuels, chemicals, iron and steel, plastics, parts and processed supplies.
• Non-monetary gold: commodity gold for industry, jewellery and storing value, not seasonally adjusted and often volatile.

March 2024, released May 2, 2024, shows the pattern. Seasonally adjusted imports rose $1,618m (+4.2%) to -$39,887m.

Exports rose only $51m (+0.1%) while goods balance fell $1,567m to $5,024m. Capital goods rose $729m (+8.0%), led by ADP equipment up $342m (+32.1%) to -$1,406m, with consumption up $486m (+4.1%) and intermediate up $666m (+4.1%). Non-monetary gold fell $263m (-30.1%) to -$610m, moving against the headline and partly offsetting the rise.

1. Collection: Take all in-scope import declarations finalised in the calendar month from daily ICS files. Exclude out-of-scope lines after large value checks.

1. Currency conversion: For each deal in foreign currency, multiply the foreign amount by the daily selling rate for that currency against Australian dollars. The rate is the Reserve Bank of Australia daily selling rate on the export date.

1. Valuation: Use customs value of free-on-board type to the export frontier without foreign freight. Derive cost, insurance and freight values by consignment ratio.

1. BoP adjustment: Add below-threshold estimates of $20,000 and ownership timing of $50,000, and remove processing without ownership of $400,000. The consignment then contributes $700,000 after these tweaks.

1. Aggregation: Add 12.0 plus 9.0 plus 17.0 to get 38.0, then add 0.6 gold to get debits of -38.6 at current prices. Debits show negative and rounded sums may differ.

1. Concurrent seasonal adjustment: Remove seasonal plus trading day plus moving holiday effects with concurrent adjustment and ARIMA. Revise estimates with each new release.

1. Henderson average: Take trend with a 13-term Henderson average of the adjusted series. Revisions centre on the closest 6 months to the series end.

1. Percentage change: Work import change ignoring sign as gap over absolute prior times 100. A move from -$37.0m to -$38.6m means growth of 4.3%.