Imports MoM

Imports MoM is the month-on-month % change in goods debits (the import side of Australia's goods trade), in AUD million. It comes from International Trade in Goods, the monthly publication of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Australia's national statistical agency.

It records ownership change under the Balance of Payments Manual Sixth Edition (BPM6), on a seasonally adjusted basis. It rests on the full count of Home Affairs customs declarations for goods entering permanently, not a sample survey. It excludes services, transit and temporary goods, and ownership changes with no border crossing.

Collection runs daily, and imports count in the month Home Affairs first finalises each declaration, even before arrival or after discharge. The ABS publishes the release 21 working days after each reference month ends, at 11:30am AEST (Canberra time). Customised products are released no earlier than 1pm, and any changed date is announced in advance on the ABS website. Each issue shows the goods balance, credits and debits in original, seasonally adjusted and trend terms, with commodity, country and state splits.

Merchandise data for the previous 6 months are revised monthly, and the August issue can revise 4 previous financial years. Seasonal factors are re-estimated each month, so recent months can move and deserve care.

Headline imports add up from 6 dollar blocks, with shares shifting every month. The publisher states no fixed weights.

• Total goods debits: the import aggregate on a balance of payments basis, seasonally adjusted; the MoM % is computed on it.

• General merchandise debits: total minus non-monetary gold, holding the 3 BoPBEC groups below.

• Consumption goods: household imports such as food, appliances, cars, clothing and leisure goods, often moved by vehicle shipments.

• Capital goods: investment imports such as machinery, computers, telecom equipment and aircraft, with some items left unadjusted.

• Intermediate and other merchandise goods: inputs and fuels such as parts, chemicals, steel and carrier goods procured in ports.

• Non-monetary gold: commodity gold, unadjusted and highly volatile, sometimes outweighing its size.

August 2024 (published 3 October 2024): goods debits fell $75m (0.2%) to -$37,582m. Consumption goods fell $505m (4.2%), led by non-industrial transport equipment, down $237m (7.5%). Capital goods rose $147m (1.6%), while intermediate goods rose $285m (1.8%). Fuels and lubricants led that gain, up $216m (4.7%), so the calm headline hid large offsets.

1. Customs values: invoice-currency values convert to AUD at daily average selling rates from the Reserve Bank for the export date. The customs value is FOB-type (price to the exporting country's frontier, excluding international freight and insurance). The CIF part (Cost, Insurance and Freight) is modelled separately.

1. Monthly aggregation: declarations finalised in the reference month join merchandise imports under the general trade system, including warehouse goods and re-imports. Lines below $1,000 stay out of merchandise scope, with estimates added only at the balance of payments stage; transit and temporary goods stay out too.

1. Coverage adjustments: goods that change ownership without crossing, such as non-monetary gold, are added. Movements without ownership change, such as processing and large returns, are removed.

1. Timing and valuation adjustments: high-value deals shift to the ownership-change period, and misreported values are corrected. Original-terms debits then carry negative entries.

1. Seasonal adjustment: concurrent adjustment with ARIMA modelling removes seasonal, trading-day and moving-holiday (Easter) effects for the current and previous months, but not irregular movements. A 13-term Henderson average produces the trend, so the latest months revise.

1. Month-on-month %: the % comes from $m magnitudes without regard to sign: subtract the previous month, divide by it, multiply by 100. For illustration, July 2024 at $37,657m and August 2024 at $37,582m differ by -$75m, giving -0.2%.