MARCH KEY FIGURES

		Dec Qtr 2015 to Mar Qtr 2016	Mar Qtr 2015 to Mar Qtr 2016
		% change	% change
GDP (Chain volume measure)
	Trend	0.9	3.2
	Seasonally adjusted	1.1	3.1
Final consumption expenditure (Chain volume measure)
	Trend	0.7	3.1
	Seasonally adjusted	0.7	3.2
Gross fixed capital formation (Chain volume measure)
	Trend	-1.5	-5.9
	Seasonally adjusted	-1.7	-5.7
GDP chain price index
	Original	-0.4	-1.7
Terms of trade
	Seasonally adjusted	-1.9	-11.5
Real net national disposable income
	Trend	-	-1.1
	Seasonally adjusted	0.2	-1.3
- nil or rounded to zero (including null cells)

GDP growth rates, Volume measures, quarterly change

Contribution to GDP growth, Seasonally adjusted

MARCH KEY POINTS


GDP SUMMARY

• The March quarter 2016 National accounts show the Australian economy growing by 1.1% in seasonally adjusted chain volume terms.
• The major driver of economic growth this quarter came from Exports which contributed 1.0 percentage point and Household final consumption expenditure contributing 0.4 percentage points.
• The increase in Exports is reflected in the growth observed in Mining production (6.2%). Growth was also observed in the service industries of Financial and insurance services (1.8%), Accommodation and food services (1.5%), and Arts and recreation services (0.9%).
• The largest detractor from growth was Private gross fixed capital formation which fell 2.2%, this was driven by falls in New engineering construction (-6.4%) and New buildings (-6.9%).
• The Terms of trade fell by 1.9%, reflecting a fall in the price of exports relative to the price of imports.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE (QUARTER)	Release Date
June 2016	7 September 2016
September 2016	7 December 2016
December 2016	1 March 2017

REVISIONS IN THIS ISSUE

There are revisions in this issue due to the incorporation of more up-to-date data and concurrent seasonal adjustment.

There are additional revisions due to a correction made in the calculation of Average compensation of employees. These revisions will impact the average compensation per employee and average non-farm compensation per employee estimates from March 1985 to the current quarter.


UPCOMING CHANGES

Changes to spreadsheet series IDs will occur in the June Quarter publication which will be released on 7 September 2016. Details of these changes will be included in 5206.0.55.005 Information paper: Upcoming changes to spreadsheet series IDs in National Income, Expenditure and Product which will be released on 8 July 2016.


OTHER INFORMATION

In December 2015, the Commonwealth Government released the 2015-16 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) which included a reclassification of visa application charges (VAC). In MYEFO these charges are now treated as taxation revenue rather than sales of goods and services. This reclassification has been applied to the Government Finance Statistics (GFS), with no impact on total GFS revenue or the GFS net operating balance. The National Accounts statistics will maintain coherence with previously published data and classify this transaction as sales of goods and services. These treatments will remain in place until a review of the treatment of VAC and similar government charges in macroeconomic statistics has been completed. This review is expected to be finalised by the end of 2016.


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INQUIRIES

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