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10/12/2007: The feature article Foreign Ownership of Equity was released on 10th December 2007.

7/12/2007 Note: The feature article Foreign Ownership of Equity was scheduled to be released on 7th December 2007 and is now expected to be released on 10 December 2007.

6/12/2007 Note: The feature article Foreign Ownership of Equity was scheduled to be released on Thursday 6 December 2007. It is now expected to be released on Friday 7 December 2007.

5/12/2007 Note: Tables 35 and 85 in the Time Series Spreadsheets have been updated with the latest current price original GDP measure from the September 2007 quarterly national accounts.


Ratios of current account and international investment measures to both annual and annualised (i.e. four quarter moving average ending on the reference quarter) GDP are normally presented in Tables 35 and 85.

As explained in the Main Features of 5302.0 that was published on 30 November 2007, the annualised ratios using quarterly GDP were suppressed pending the release of updated quarterly GDP estimates.

Tables 35 and 85 in the Time Series data have been updated on 5 December 2007 in conjunction with the release of the September 2007 quarter issue of Australian National Accounts: National Income and Expenditure (cat. no. 5206.0).

SEPTEMBER QUARTER KEY FIGURES

		Jun Qtr 2007	Sep Qtr 2007	Jun Qtr 2007 to Sep Qtr 2007
		$m	$m	% change
TREND ESTIMATES
Balance on current account		-15 558	-15 630	-
Balance on goods and services		-3 927	-4 268	-9
Net income		-11 533	-11 275	2
SEASONALLY ADJUSTED
Balance on current account		-15 620	-15 587	-
Balance on goods and services		-3 865	-4 387	-14
Net income		-11 620	-11 149	4
ORIGINAL
Balance on current account		-13 976	-17 470	-25
Balance on capital and financial account		14 362	18 022	25
Levels at end of period
Net international investment position		647 728	658 803	2
	Net foreign equity	101 795	88 848	-13
	Net foreign debt	545 933	569 955	4
- nil or rounded to zero (including null cells)

Current Account, Main aggregates - Trend estimates at current prices (a)

International Investment

SEPTEMBER KEY POINTS


BALANCE OF PAYMENTS

• The current account deficit, seasonally adjusted, fell $33m to $15,587m. The deficit on the balance of goods and services rose $522m (14%) to $4,387m. The income deficit fell $471m (4%) to $11,149m.
• In seasonally adjusted chain volume terms there was an increase of $184m (2%) in the deficit on goods and services. This could be expected to make no contribution to growth in the September quarter 2007 volume measures of GDP.

• Australia's net IIP rose $11.1b to a net liability position of $658.8b. Net foreign debt was $570.0b, an increase of $24.0b. Net foreign equity decreased by $12.9b to a liability of $88.8b.

Incorporation of the latest survey and administrative data and the introduction of revised methodology for compiling withholding taxes and aid payments has resulted in revisions to the current account and the capital account back to September quarter 2001. In original terms, revisions have:

• increased the 2001-02 current account deficit by $39m
• decreased the 2002-03 current account deficit by $46m
• increased the 2003-04 current account deficit by $88m
• increased the 2004-05 current account deficit by $45m
• increased the 2005-06 current account deficit by $262m
• decreased the 2006-07 current account deficit by $683m.

The financial account and international investment position have been revised back to September quarter 2006 increasing Australia's net IIP liability as at 30 June 2007 by $5,290m.

FEATURE ARTICLE

A feature article Foreign Ownership of Equity is scheduled for release on 6 December 2007 and can be accessed on the ABS web site www.abs.gov.au from the summary page of this issue. This article updates the analysis of foreign ownership of equity last released with the September quarter 2006 issue of this publication.

INQUIRIES

For further information contact Selvi Sekhar on Canberra (02) 6252 5540 for balance of payments estimates, and Scott Jensen on Canberra (02) 6252 5541 for international investment estimates.