March key figures

Financing resources and investment, original, current prices
			Non-financial corporations		Financial corporations		General government		Household		Total National		Rest of world
			$b		$b		$b		$b		$b		$b
Financing resources
	Net saving (a)		-18.8		23.9		8.1		9.5		22.7		1.1
	plus Consumption of fixed capital		39.8		3.2		10.0		30.4		83.5		-
	Gross saving		21.0		27.1		18.1		40.0		106.2		1.1
	plus Net capital transfers		0.3		-		-0.9		0.5		-0.2		0.2
	less Statistical discrepancy (b)		-		-		-		-		6.4		-
	Total financing resources		21.3		27.1		17.2		40.4		99.6		1.3
Uses of financing (Investment)
	Capital formation
		Gross fixed capital formation	46.4		3.3		16.5		36.7		102.9		-
		plus Change in inventories	-1.7		-		-		-0.3		-2		-
		plus Net acquisition of non-produced non-financial assets	-0.4		-		0.4		-		-		-
		Total capital formation	44.3		3.3		16.9		36.4		100.9		-
	plus Financial investment
		Acquisition of financial assets	17.9		-7.6		7.1		36.0		-18.2		-17.2
		less Incurrence of liabilities	31.7		3.6		6.2		13.0		-17.2		-18.2
		Net financial investment (Net lending (+) / net borrowing (-))	-13.8		11.1		1.0		23.0		-1.0		1.0
	less Net errors and omissions		9.2		34.9		0.6		19.0		0.3		-0.3
	Total investment		21.3		27.1		17.2		40.4		99.6		1.3
- nil or rounded to zero (including null cells) (a) Net saving for the Rest of world is the balance on the external income account. (b) The statistical discrepancy is not able to be distributed among the sectors.

Australia’s national investment remains elevated

National investment decreased $22.2b in March quarter 2019 to $100.9b. The fall comes off the back of a record high in the December quarter 2018 and, despite the decrease, remains at high levels.

Graph 1. Total capital formation, current prices

Private non-financial corporations invested $39.5b over the quarter, down $8.5b from December. Investment in machinery and equipment was down this quarter, while the decline in mining investment continued as significant LNG projects move into the production phase.

Households invested $36.4b, down $9.6b from the previous quarter. The decrease was driven by falls in dwelling investment and ownership transfer costs, reflecting the weak conditions in the residential housing market.


Australia’s borrowing narrows to $1 billion

National net borrowing of $1.0b in March quarter 2019 was the lowest since December quarter 1983. The $1.0b worth of lending by the rest of the world was derived by repayments of their liabilities ($18.2b) being larger than the disposal of their financial assets ($17.2b).

During the quarter, rest of the world acquired $15.1b of private non-financial corporations’ shares and other equity but these were offset by maturities of their holdings of bank one name paper ($21.3b) and settlements of their bank derivative contracts ($17.1b). On the liabilities side, rest of the world borrowed $11.1b of short term loans from banks and other private non-financial corporations, and paid off their long term bank loans ($24.0b) and settled their derivative contracts with banks ($16.8b).

Graph 2. Net financial investment (net lending (+) / net borrowing (-))


Net borrowing by non-financial corporations was $13.8b driven by loan borrowing of $17.5b and net issuances of equity of $13.2b.

The general government was a net lender of $956m this quarter driven by maturities of long-term debt securities of $5.1b.

Households were net lenders of $23.0b, accruing $18.8b in net equity in reserves of pension funds (superannuation) and $10.0b of deposits. These were offset by their loan borrowing of $9.9b.


Notes

Forthcoming issues

Issue (quarter)	Release Date
June 2019	26 September 2019
September 2019	19 December 2019
December 2019	26 March 2020
March 2019	25 June 2020

Changes to this issue

Following ongoing quality assurance work a number of data quality issues have been identified with Table 52. Nominal Value of Short Term Loans and Placements Market ($ million) and Table 53. Nominal Value of Long Term Loans and Placements Market ($ million). These tables will be unavailable until further notice. However, Table 45. The Short Term Loans and Placements Market ($ million) and Table 46. The Long Term Loans and Placements Market ($ million), which are on a market value basis, are available.


Revisions in this issue

There have been revisions to previously published aggregates due to:

• Quality assurance reviews affecting the published aggregates after March quarter 2017, in addition to amendments to data collected in the ABS Survey of Financial Information, ABS Survey of International Investment and to data derived from Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) administrative data sets.
• Revisions to the sectoral capital accounts are due to more up-to-date data being incorporated and concurrent seasonal adjustment.

Changes in future issues

As part of its role as the statistical agency for the financial sector, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) collects data from financial institutions, including banks, for the ABS and the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA). Some of the forms used to collect this data and used in this publication haven’t been updated since they were first introduced back in 2002.

Over the past few years, APRA, the ABS and the RBA have worked with banks and other financial institutions to modernise the set of forms and these institutions have adapted their infrastructure to report on the new forms. The new set of forms is called the Economic and Financial Statistics (EFS) collection.

The changes in the new EFS collection include:

• collecting much more detailed data on loan and deposit balances;
• using the most up to date classifications available for economic sectors; and
• using definitions that align with current international standards for economic statistics.

Changes from the implementation of EFS will be incorporated into the September quarter 2019 publication of Finance and Wealth, to be released on 19 December 2019.


Inquiries

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070 or National accounts by email <national.accounts@abs.gov.au>.


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