ABOUT THIS RELEASE

This release presents estimates of the economic activity of majority foreign owned businesses in the Australian economy, by country and industry. The estimates for 2014-15 are compiled primarily using data sourced from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) within the Business Longitudinal Analysis Data Environment (BLADE).

The estimates in this publication are based on the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC), 2006 edition (cat no. 1292.0).


FOREIGN OWNERSHIP DISAGGREGATION

The foreign ownership disaggregation presented in this publication is as follows:

• Foreign ownership less than 10%
• Foreign ownership 10% to less than or equal to 50%; and
• Foreign ownership greater than 50%.

In instances where not all categories of disaggregation were able to be produced, the following disaggregation is presented:

• Foreign ownership less than or equal to 50%; and
• Foreign ownership greater than 50%.

OFF-JUNE REPORTING

The data collected in the BLADE generally represent the 12 month period ended 30 June. However, where businesses report data on a different basis an alternate or off-June year accounting period is used. As a result, in some instances estimates may reflect trading conditions occurring outside of the published reference year.


CHANGES IN THIS ISSUE

There have been various changes in the data sources and data items used to produce estimates of the economic activity of foreign owned business in Australia between the 2000-01 and 2014-15 issues. A summary of these changes is presented below, with more information on the comparability between the 2000-01 and 2014-15 issues included in the Explanatory Notes of this publication.

LIST OF CHANGES

Change in Source Data

Foreign ownership characteristics and economic activity in the current issue has been calculated using BLADE and applied to ABS official statistics. The BLADE includes Business Income Tax (BIT), Business Activity Statement (BAS) and Pay as You Go (PAYG) data provided by the ATO. In contrast, the last issue of this publication linked the Economic Activity Survey (EAS) and the Survey of International Investment (SII) to estimate economic activity and foreign ownership characteristics.


Changes to Data Items

• Seven new variables have been added to this issue of the publication:
  • Sales of Goods and Services;
  • Taxable Profit;
  • Profit after Tax;
  • Compensation of Employees;
  • Contractors and Commissions;
  • Capital expenditure; and
  • Exports of Goods and Services.

• Two variables have been removed from this issue of the publication:
  • Total Operating Income; and
  • Gross Fixed Capital Formation.

• Two new categories have been added to this issue of the publication:
  • Business size (categorised into employment groupings); and
  • Foreign ownership (categorised by percentage of foreign ownership).

ROUNDING

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


INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, please contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070, or email client.services@abs.gov.au. The ABS Privacy Policy outlines how the ABS will handle any personal information that you provide to us.